Ionic cordova plugin not showing up

new to ionic I'm using windows 7 with ionic I tried ..ionic add plugin ... to add new plugins when I check my directory structure the plugins are not installed how do I add new plugins and how do I check if the install worked

I think you want to add a cordova plugin, not an ionic plugin? If so you have to do it like this:

cordova plugin add [plugin]

for e.g. the network plugin:

cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.network-information

The plugin now should show up in the app/plugins folder

Hope this helps!