Why my minor mode bindings do not get precedence over global/major mode bindings? BUG?

Question

EDIT: ANSWER

The cause for the problem in this question was pointed out in the Emacs mailing list. It is due to the (kbd ...) forms not getting evaluated because the keymap in the define-minor-mode is passed as a quoted list. The (kbd ...) forms can be used by using a backquoted list and then placing a , before each (kbd ...) form so that they get evaluated.

END EDIT

I know there are similar questions like mine, but I could not find an answer to my question.

This question was edited (below) because it appears to be a bug (please confirm).

I want my minor-mode bindings to get precedence over the pdf-view major mode bindings.

I define my minor mode with the following code:

(define-minor-mode pdf-continuous-scroll-mode
  "Emulate continuous scroll with two synchronized buffers"
  nil
  " Continuous"
  '(((kbd "j") . (lambda () (interactive) (print "pushed j")))
    ((kbd "k") . (lambda () (interactive) (print "pushed k")))
    ((kbd "C-n") . (lambda () (interactive) (print "pushed C-n")))
    ((kbd "C-p") . (lambda () (interactive)(print "pushed C-p"))))
  (print "loaded minor mode"))

Now when I evaluate this while I am viewing a document with PDF-tools and enable the minor mode, then the j/k bindings work but the C-n/C-p bindings do not because Emacs still uses the pdf-view major mode keybindings (i.e. it scrolls the document). I find here that minor-mode keymaps should have highest precedence behind overlay keymaps. I checked if maybe there is some overlay keymap used in PDF-tools but I could not find one.

Can anybody explain why my minor mode bindings do not get precedence over de pdf-view major mode bindings?

EDITS

1. I find the C-n and C-p do not even get precedence over the global-keymap. I can just start emacs using emacs -Q, evaluate the code and activate the minor mode. Then still C-n and C-p do not work. Please someone confirm this is a bug, then I will report the bug.

END EDIT

Answer 1

I think it's a bug.

If you don't use that alist as the KEYMAP arg, but instead you create a keymap, assign it to a variable, use define-key with (kbd "C-n") etc., and use that variable as the KEYMAP arg, then it works.

Please consider using M-x report-emacs-bug, to report this.

(setq toto-map (make-sparse-keymap))
(defun foo () "..." (interactive) (message "my C-n"))
(define-key toto-map (kbd "C-n") 'foo)
(define-minor-mode pdf-continuous-scroll-mode
  "Emulate continuous scroll with two synchronized buffers"
  nil
  " Continuous"
  toto-map
  (print "loaded minor mode"))