Post: Empower your documentation with addons (#278)

* Post: Empower your documentation with addons

Initial draft

* Small updates

* More writing

* Apply suggestions from code review

Co-authored-by: David Fischer <[email protected]>

* Apply suggestions from code review

Co-authored-by: Eric Holscher <[email protected]>

* Remove TODOs

* Move "How to enable addons" above the "Full list"

* Feedback from review

---------

Co-authored-by: David Fischer <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Eric Holscher <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

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+title: Empower your documentation with addons
+date: 2024-04-25
+description: Read the Docs Addons let documentation authors add features to their documentation such as analytics, version feedback, and search as you type to documentation in a modular way where authors have control.
+category: Feature announcement
+tags: addons, hosting
+authors: Manuel Kaufmann
+status: published
+image: /images/enable-beta-addons.jpg
+image_credit: Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@impatrickt?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Patrick Tomasso</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/open-book-lot-Oaqk7qqNh_c?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a>
+
+
+In the last year, we have been focusing ourselves on providing a better experience for authors and readers of the documentation.
+Today, we are thrilled to introduce our latest feature,
+designed around user feedback to build a better user experience: **Read the Docs Addons**.
+
+Read the Docs Addons helps authors to keep their documentation updated by focusing on the most relevant pages,
+while simplifying the review process --and also helps readers to navigate the documentation in a simple way,
+always knowing the versions they are reading avoiding confusions.
+
+Continue reading to explore the full list of addons and how to enable them in your project.
+
+## How to enable addons in your project
+
+To enable Read the Docs Addons in your project follow these steps:
+
+1. Go to the new beta dashboard:
+  * [Community](https://beta.readthedocs.org)
+  * [Business](https://beta.readthedocs.com)
+1. Click on the project you want to enable addons.
+1. Go to **Settings**, then **Addons (Beta)** from the left bar.
+1. Check **Enable Addons**.
+
+Now you have Read the Docs Addons enabled,
+readers of your documentation can start using these features.
+
+
+## Full list of addons
+
+
+### Analytics
+
+![Analytics Addons](/images/addons-analytics.png)
+
+Analytics allows authors to explore your documentation traffic to understand what are the pages readers read the most.
+With this data, your team is able to **prioritize the work on pages with high traffic** over others with less.
+Besides, you can find out what are the terms your users search the most and
+write documentation pages that include those terms so they can easily find them.
+
+### DocDiff
+
+![Docdiff Addons](/images/addons-docdiff.gif)
+
+DocDiff shows changes made on the rendered versions by **visually highlighting the differences between
+the current pull request and the latest version of the project's documentation**.
+This addons allows reviewers to quickly find what has changed on this pull request
+but also find style/rendering issues before accepting and merging the pull request.
+To show the differences on a pull request against the _latest_ version,
+the reader can press `d` on their keyboard to enable/disable.
+
+### Pull request notification
+
+![Pull request notification](/images/addons-pull-request-notification.png)
+
+This notification warns users letting them know the documentation page they are reading
+comes from a pull request to clearly distinguish this version from the official one.
+
+
+### Flyout
+
+![Flyout Addons](/images/addons-flyout.png)
+
+The _flyout_ is the small floating Read the Docs section where all the documentation versions and translations are listed.
+This allows readers to **find the exact version they are looking for** and also read the documention in their own language if it's available.
+Besides, it contains useful links to go to the project's home, builds page and offline formats such as PDFs and ebooks.
+
+### Non-stable notification
+
+![Non-stable notification](/images/addons-non-stable-notification.png)
+
+A notification on all _non-stable_ versions is shown to clearly communicate to readers
+they may be reading an outdated version of the documentation.
+This helps readers to avoid confusion and quickly jump into the _stable_ version of the documentation.
+Besides, it **reduces support requests from old version of your product**.
+
+
+### Latest version notification
+
+![Latest notification](/images/addons-latest-notification.png)
+
+A notification shown on the _latest_ version tells readers
+they are reading the _latest/development_ version of the documentation that may include features not yet deployed.
+This will help your readers to avoid confusion on the version they are using and the one they are reading,
+while letting your project to expose these yet unreleased features.
+
+### Search as you type
+
+![Search](/images/addons-search.gif)
+
+Search _as-you-type_ is powered by an Elasticsearch backend that allows users to quickly find exactly what they are looking for while typing.
+It also **saves recent searches to have them at the tip of your fingers**.
+
+
+### Sponsorship
+
+
+![EthicalAds](/images/addons-ethical-ads.png)
+
+EthicalAds is the business model that allows Read the Docs to continue being a free web service.
+It respects users while providing value to advertisers.
+We don’t track you, sell your data, or anything else.
+We simply show ads to users, based on the content of the page you're currently looking at.
+
+
+## Moving forward
+
+We have implemented Read the Docs Addons in a modular way that allows us to expand them in the future.
+There are plans to keep adding more addons to this list and also re-implement some of the Sphinx extension we've created in the past
+(e.g. [`sphinx-hoverxref`](https://github.com/readthedocs/sphinx-hoverxref)) as an addon,
+making it compatible with non-Sphinx projects.
+
+We are also open to suggestions for new addons, [let us](https://github.com/readthedocs/addons/issues) know if you have an idea!
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Read the Docs provides a lot of features for documentation authors to simplify their workflow and to keep the documentation updated,
+providing pull request previews, automation rules, versioning, translation, and many other features.
+
+The introduction of Read the Docs Addons, empowers the readers' experience as well, closing the circle between authors and readers.
+Addons give readers a quick way to find what they are looking for,
+notifies them about reading the _latest_ version which may have features that are not yet implemented or,
+an old version that may be deprecated.
+It gives them a way to quickly switch between versions and translations of the same page,
+and much more in near future!
+
+## Contact
+
+[Contact us](https://readthedocs.org/support/) if you have any questions about the new beta Read the Docs Addons,
+or [open an issue](https://github.com/readthedocs/addons) to share any feedback you may have.