replace template with other when conditions are met

Question

I want to add a record do theme_hook_suggestions variable but only when specific conditions are met, especially when system is going to use a specific template in theme. In effect I want to replace one template with other.

I.e. - when user sees node with id = 50 and view mode == teaser and user has set some specific parameters system should use template node-special.tpl.php. In any other condition system should use base template node-50.tpl.php

I cannot do this, as far as I understand, in any *preprocess or *process functions basing on variables because there is no information available about what template are candidate for use.

How can I achieve this?

EDIT, more detailed explanation:

I'm trying to build a A/B testing system for e-commerce site I run. I want to set a A/B test where for selected base template a new variant will be defined and for chosen group of users this new variant will be used. I want to have a universal solution where I could configure this just by one line of code. It should work both for nodes, fields, blocks, pages templates. I just simply need to substitute one template field with another.

ie I want to have a universal config:

$ABconfig = array(
        'ABbigrelated' => array( //test name
                'basetemplate' => 'related-nodes', //base template
                'newtemplate' => 'related-nodes-bigimages', //new template
                'GAdimensions'  =>  'dimension2' //config for googleanalitics

        )
);

Answer 1

You can alter the list of template suggestions in your preprocess hook:

function drop_preprocess(&$variables) {
  $variant = drop_get_variant_for_current_user($variables);
  if ($variant) {
    $suggestions = array();
    foreach ($variables['theme_hook_suggestions'] as $suggestion) {
      $suggestions[] = $suggestion
      $suggestions[] = $suggestion . '--' . $variant;
    }
    $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'] = $suggestions;
  }
}

This will add templates variants for all theme hook. So for instance, this allow you to override the node.tpl.php and page.tpl.php templates with node--special.tpl.php and page--special.tpl.php ones (when drop_get_variant_for_current_user() returns 'special'. If the template for a variant does not exists, it will simply be ignored.

Note that the order of suggestions is preserved. If you have three specialized node templates: node.tpl.php, node--special.tpl.php and node-article.tpl.php (the default one, the 'special' variant and the template for article nodes), when rendering an article node, the 'node-article.tpl.php' will be used since 'node_article' will be after both 'node' and 'node__special' in $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'].

Because it will run for all templates used on the page, the use a static cache in get_variant_for_current_user() so the actual variant won't be computed again and again for the same request/template.

Update:

• The exact used template with be the last one in $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'] for which a template file exits. For instance if $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'] == array('node', 'node--special', 'node-article', 'node-article--special'), but only the node.tpl.php, node-article.tpl.php and node--special.tpl.php files exist, then node--special.tpl.php will be used.
• The drop_get_variant_template() function is the one where you put your variant selection logic (and that has to be written).