Jonathan, your missing an underscore...
function test_preprocess_html(&$vars){
if (!empty($vars['node'])) {
$vars['theme_hook_suggestions'][] = 'html__node__' . $vars['node']->type;
}
}
Your get it if you see whats suggested already be doing a var_dump($vars).
This has nothing to do with the Zen theme, it's just core functionality.
To understand how this is formed you can take a look at the theme_get_suggestions() function in theme.inc
/**
* Generate an array of suggestions from path arguments.
*
* This is typically called for adding to the 'theme_hook_suggestions' or
* 'classes_array' variables from within preprocess functions, when wanting to
* base the additional suggestions on the path of the current page.
*
* @param $args
* An array of path arguments, such as from function arg().
* @param $base
* A string identifying the base 'thing' from which more specific suggestions
* are derived. For example, 'page' or 'html'.
* @param $delimiter
* The string used to delimit increasingly specific information. The default
* of '__' is appropriate for theme hook suggestions. '-' is appropriate for
* extra classes.
*
* @return
* An array of suggestions, suitable for adding to
* $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'] within a preprocess function or to
* $variables['classes_array'] if the suggestions represent extra CSS classes.
*/
function theme_get_suggestions($args, $base, $delimiter = '__') {
// Build a list of suggested theme hooks or body classes in order of
// specificity. One suggestion is made for every element of the current path,
// though numeric elements are not carried to subsequent suggestions. For
// example, for $base='page', http://www.example.com/node/1/edit would result
// in the following suggestions and body classes:
//
// page__node page-node
// page__node__% page-node-%
// page__node__1 page-node-1
// page__node__edit page-node-edit
$suggestions = array();
$prefix = $base;
foreach ($args as $arg) {
// Remove slashes or null per SA-CORE-2009-003 and change - (hyphen) to _
// (underscore).
//
// When we discover templates in @see drupal_find_theme_templates,
// hyphens (-) are converted to underscores (_) before the theme hook
// is registered. We do this because the hyphens used for delimiters
// in hook suggestions cannot be used in the function names of the
// associated preprocess functions. Any page templates designed to be used
// on paths that contain a hyphen are also registered with these hyphens
// converted to underscores so here we must convert any hyphens in path
// arguments to underscores here before fetching theme hook suggestions
// to ensure the templates are appropriately recognized.
$arg = str_replace(array("/", "\\", "\0", '-'), array('', '', '', '_'), $arg);
// The percent acts as a wildcard for numeric arguments since
// asterisks are not valid filename characters on many filesystems.
if (is_numeric($arg)) {
$suggestions[] = $prefix . $delimiter . '%';
}
$suggestions[] = $prefix . $delimiter . $arg;
if (!is_numeric($arg)) {
$prefix .= $delimiter . $arg;
}
}
if (drupal_is_front_page()) {
// Front templates should be based on root only, not prefixed arguments.
$suggestions[] = $base . $delimiter . 'front';
}
return $suggestions;
}
Have a look at the $delimter argument. The default is '__' for theme_hook_suggestions().