AnkiWeb lacks an ability to browse or search for available add-ons. Please consider adding a feature to allow us to do so. They only appear, somehow, via Google searches.
How did you find that link? I can’t find it on the AnkiWeb home page nor any of the linked pages from the footer. You can’t navigate to it from an add-on page. It’s basically a hidden page that’s not discoverable.
Great point, not even the docs point to this location, it vaguely mentions Tools>Add-ons
In r/anki and r/medicalschoolanki is in the sidebar
can’t do much in the original website, but we can change the docs
Yeah, I think this is something @dae needs to fix. I don’t think that the AnkiWeb source is available on github.
I also found https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks. Are there any other important pages that you’re aware of?
I suspect I got it from – Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons… > Browse Add-ons.
The manual page Add-ons - Anki Manual does give those directions:
To browse the list of available add-ons, select the Tools>Add-ons menu item, then click on Get Add-ons.
The only place I’ve seen the link itself documented is a bit of a jaunt – Manual > Add-ons > Add-on writing guide > Sharing Add-ons.
But yes, it doesn’t make sense that there isn’t a back-link to it on every add-on page.
Well that one is a bit easier –
AnkiDesktop Decks page
AnkiWeb Decks page
And it’s explained on the most important page of the manual – Getting Started - Anki Manual .
You’re welcome to all my links, but I don’t want to spam them. The other ones I use a lot are the FAQ, the AnkiDroid manual/wiki/changelog, the AnkiMobile manual, the GitHub repos, AnkiDesktop Releases, … but they are all pretty easy to get to.
Both the add-on list and shared deck list can be accessed from within Anki.
There’s an “All Add-Ons” button at the bottom of each description.
I admit that I’ve completely missed that.
But I do wonder if it would be better placed at the top of the page, where navigation-related buttons usually are (and the other nav-buttons on that page actually are).
That doesn’t help when using a web browser. Could you add the following to the ul tag in the navigation bar? It would help tremendously.
<li><a class="nav-link" href="/shared/addons">Add-ons</a></li>
<li><a class="nav-link" href="/shared/decks">Decks</a></li>
The HTML above will make the navigation bar look like the following image, and it’ll look correct on both desktop and mobile layouts.
That’s only for addons. I see no such button when viewing a shared deck. Also, it’s hidden away down the page where it’s not easy to discover. In all these years I’ve never noticed it before.
You can’t use add-ons in AnkiWeb, so it wouldn’t make much sense to link it from there.
And AnkiWeb already has a link to the shared decks. (see above)
Of course it would. People provide links to addons and decks from forums and web sites all the time. If I click on a link to one, I might want to explore others. I may want to tell a friend about Anki and say, “Go to ankiweb.net and look at all the plugins and shared decks that are available for it.” Yet they would be hard pressed to find them because there isn’t navigation to them from the ankiweb.net home page.
The point isn’t to install addons and decks into AnkiWeb. The point is to be able to easily navigate the AnkiWeb site to discover what’s available. That’s not easy to do right now.
I don’t see a link to the shared decks. In your screenshot it looks like you’re logged into some account page. Does a user have to create an account and be logged in to see that button? If so, that’s not a solution. There needs to be a way to navigate to the list of decks without having to make an account.
I don’t mean to be flippant, but the simple answer there is – don’t do it that way.
The landing page itself tells you that AnkiWeb is not meant to be used alone. So that’s not a good check-this-out link to give to a new user. If you want to get someone interested, send them an appropriate link, like https://apps.ankiweb.net/, or the direct links to what you’re recommending.
Someone doesn’t need an account to reach the decks and add-ons pages, but it seems like having them only accessible from the tools that use them avoids a lot of confused folks asking "but how do I use this deck/add-on?’