# When to use a plugin vs theme component?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/when-to-use-a-plugin-vs-theme-component/297052
**Category:** Development
**Tags:** css
**Created:** [February 28, 2024, 11:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/when-to-use-a-plugin-vs-theme-component/297052 "2024-02-28T11:22:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 10

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### Author: ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2024, 4:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/when-to-use-a-plugin-vs-theme-component/297052/10 "2024-03-01T16:14:37Z")

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If you want to add new stuff to a template, I would start with [GitHub - discourse/discourse-theme-skeleton: Template for Discourse themes · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-theme-skeleton), but I don’t know how to go about adding a column there. I guess there’s some javascript magic you could do, but that’s not my wheelhouse.

You know that you can see that information if you mouse-over, right?

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/3/1/3/313662d89e286b67f006ad5aef7a648ab8f62d79.png)

Also see [Plugin outlet locations theme component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-outlet-locations-theme-component/100673), but there’s no plugin outlet there.

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