dired+ is not invoked by default

Question

When I type C-x d for the first time after starting emacs I get regular dired, not dired+ view. If I execute M-x diredp-dired-for-files I get dired+ view of the directory, and every C-x d after that opens dired+ view of any directory I visit. Also if dired+ package was updated from list-packages then C-x d invokes dired+ automatically even the first time and without me having to execute diredp-dired-for-files. Why doesn't dired+ get invoked automatically on the first and subsequent C-x d until I manually invoke it as diredp-dired-for-files? Is this how it supposed to work?

Edit I forgot to mention, package-initialize is the first command in my init.el. In fact, the packaging system takes care of this

;; Added by Package.el.  This must come before configurations of
;; installed packages.  Don't delete this line.  If you don't want it,
;; just comment it out by adding a semicolon to the start of the line.
;; You may delete these explanatory comments.
(package-initialize)

Answer 1

• If you are using the package system (e.g. MELPA), make sure you have used (package-initialize.

• Alternatively (especially if you are not using the package system): Put dired+.el (or dired+.elc) in a directory that is in your load-path, and put (require 'dired+) in your init file.

The reason Dired+ was not available from the outset is that it was not loaded by default. The above instructions should fix that. The reason that Dired+ was available after you used a Dired+ command was that the command you used was autoloaded, meaning that you could invoke it before Dired+ was loaded, and invoking it automatically loaded Dired+. Once it was loaded it was available from then on.