page--front.tpl.php not showing up in Zen subtheme

Question

I am developing a subtheme of a Zen-based subtheme. I have created a page--front.tpl.php template but it isn't being recognized. All I see is the page.tpl.php template being used for the front page.

I have cleared the cache multiple times, looked for any other page--front.tpl.php files in the subtheme I am basing mine off of (there are none). I have restarted apache to make sure nothing is being cached, so I am at a loss as to why this is not working. I am using Drupal 7 on a linux server.

Any ideas as to what may be causing this issue? I have googled similar problems but most had to do with clearing the cache (which I have already done).

Using Theme developer, it shows that page--front.tpl.php is not a canditate template to use. In fact it doesn't show any candidate templates that could be used while on the front page of the site.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Found out the problem was caused by the Context Layout module. Apparently this module overrides Drupal's normal template file search order. The solution was to either to disable the Context Layout module or include the templates (like page--front.tpl.php) in the layouts definition in the themename.info file. I went with the latter solution.

Here is an example of what should appear in the .info file:

; Layout: Landing 
layouts[landing][name] = "Landing Page"
layouts[landing][description] = "A layout for landing pages."
layouts[landing][template] = "templates/page--front"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "search"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "highlighted"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "mega_menu"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "slider"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "sidebar_first"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "sidebar_second"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "footer"
layouts[landing][regions][] = "bottom"

Notice the layouts[landing][template] line where we define where and what template file to use. This is key to getting this to work with Context Layouts.