Cannot override region.tpl.php

What the…?

Moving this to a bug report until I get a chance to verify this.

Glad I found this, I'm having the same issue. Trying to create a custom second sidebar region and it will not override using region-sidebar-second.tpl.php. The way I fixed it was moving region.tpl.php and region-sidebar.tpl.php to my sub-theme templates folder. If this is the proper method, it didn't seem that apparent in the docs.

I think the discussed issue is:
Template overriding not working if base template doesn't exist in subtheme folder. Not a Zen issue, see: http://drupal.org/node/279573

I'm having a different problem:
Overriding the zen_preprocess_region function in a subtheme's template.php file doesn't seem to work. Not sure if this is a bug though or if I'm doing something wrong.

If anybody has an idea, please elaborate :)
Thanks!

PS. I've managed to add my desired candidate function by adding it after line 85 in template.theme-registry.inc in the array of preprocess functions.

@dstotijn: Preprocess functions are never "overridden". Your sub-theme can add additional preprocess functions that come after Zen's, but they don't prevent zen's from being run. That's how all preprocess functions.

Also, if you have a different problem, open a different issue.

I just committed some code that should make region-REGION-NAME.tpl.php templates work fine in sub-themes.

Please test 6.x-2.x-dev and let me know if it fixes this issue.

I just updated to the latest 6.x-2.x-dev and my region-REGION-NAME.tpl.php files stopped working.

It looks like the code to add region template suggestions was removed from zen/template.php in the last dev update. I added the following to my subtheme's template.php file and it seems to be working.

<?php

/**
 * Override or insert variables into the region templates.
 *
 * @param $vars
 *   An array of variables to pass to the theme template.
 * @param $hook
 *   The name of the template being rendered ("region" in this case.)
 */
function csc_zen_preprocess_region(&$vars, $hook) {
  // Sidebar regions get an extra template suggestion.
  if (strpos($vars['region'], 'sidebar_') === 0) {
    $vars['template_files'][] = 'region-sidebar';
  }
  // Setup the default template suggestion.
  $vars['template_files'][] = 'region-' . str_replace('_', '-', $vars['region']);
}

?>

On a side note, I find it curious that a placeholder theme_preprocess_region() function isn't included in the default template.php file. Was this done intentionally? If so, what is the reasoning?

I have just made some tests, and I noticed that adding region-REGION-NAME.tpl.php to the sub-theme templates folder works, but just as any other template file, you must have the base template file in the folder.

Also, from what I read on zen_preprocess_region in template.php:494, the template suggestions are being properly loaded.

It looks like the code to add region template suggestions was removed from zen/template.php in the last dev update.

The code was converted. Inside zen_blocks(), region template suggestions are now implemented as "theme hook suggestions" (a pattern in d7 that replaces d6's "template suggestions").