Re: doc of defining minor modes

[David Kastrup]

"Drew Adams" <address@hidden> writes:

> Consider a (typical) external library that is not required by any
> other library. It is not part of Emacs itself; nothing in it is
> preloaded. Are you saying that there is some way that browsing
> Customize or using a menu or byte-compiling some file would cause
> that library to be loaded? Is there some way for it to be loaded
> without the user explicitly loading it? If so, this should be
> explained, because it is really not obvious.

Many external libraries use autoload cookies in order to create a
short startup file that gets loaded unconditionally in order to make
Emacs aware of the library's existence.

> I do not see how Emacs would even know of the existence of such a
> library until it is loaded.

Autoloads.  It does not make sense for larger libraries to get loaded
when they are possibly not going to be needed.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum