I installed help-fns+.el with el-get, but I can't find the functions with M-x.
I have to explicitly add
(require 'help-fns+)
in my init file. Is this a issue with el-get or help-fns+.el?
Here's my setting in the init file for el-get.
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get")
(unless (require 'el-get nil 'noerror)
(with-current-buffer
(url-retrieve-synchronously
"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dimitri/el-get/master/el-get-install.el")
(goto-char (point-max))
(eval-print-last-sexp)))
(add-to-list 'el-get-recipe-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get-user/recipes")
(el-get 'sync)
Nothing in the code you show tells Emacs to load help-fns+.el - except the explicit (require 'help-fns+). Except, that is, if you have something in recipes that takes care of this. Show all of the relevant code and perhaps someone can help more with it.
Otherwise, yes, to load help-fns+.el you need to tell Emacs to load it! And one way to do that is to (1) put that library in your load-path and then (2) (require 'help-fns+).