(Evil) Binding “q” to “View-quit” in view mode (instead of “evil-record-macro”)

Question

I'd like to be able to exit view mode by pressing "q". However, in evil "q" is bound to evil-record-macro, even in view mode. I wasn't able to find a solution using evil-define-key.

I was excited to find a similar question here, which proposes using eval-after-load, like so:

(defun testing ()
  (interactive)
  (message "Testing..."))

(eval-after-load "view" '(evil-define-key 'normal view-mode-map "q" #'testing))

This produces some strange behavior. When I enter view mode, C-h k q reports the following: "q runs the command evil-record-macro (found in evil-normal-state-map)... It is bound to q.". But, I discovered that if I do press "q", record a macro, and press "q" again to exit the recording, I see the "Testing..." message. Following this, pressing "q" continues to produce the message, and I no longer enter macro recording. "C-h k q" reports: q runs the command testing... It is bound to q, <normal-state> q.

Can someone propose a solution or workaround? Thanks!

Answer 1

Interestingly enough, Evil does define an initial state for view-mode, but it won't do anything because view-mode is a minor mode and initial states are for major modes only. The correct way to change the associated state is by using a hook:

(add-hook 'view-mode-hook 'evil-motion-state)

That way, q does the right thing, simply because it is not bound in evil-motion-state-map and Emacs looks up the mode-specific key instead. You can alternatively enter Emacs state by adding evil-emacs-state to the hook, like I do for more vanilla behavior.