I am running several sites in several different languages off of single instance of Magento.
There are two main styles:
- Site 1
- Site 2
Each site has some customizations based on language, so each shop view has an some templates defined:
- Site 2 – DE
- Site 2 – UK
Now the problem is that when I apply a product level design, it forgets about the language level definition and skips back to the main definition.
I want it to work like this:
- Site 2
- Site 2 DE
- Product Style
- Site 2 DE
Instead it seems to work like this :
- Site 2
Site 2 DE- Product Style
Where Site 2 DE is not ignored because a custom product style has been defined. How can I get the first hierarchy to work so that my product styles do not override the language styles completely?
Images
Here are some images to help you understand my configuration
Site level configuration

Store level configuration

Product level configuration

Well, I haven’t been able to accomplish what i set out to do with the template overrides, but I have “solved” the problem another way.
Instead of trying to override the “Custom Design” I have overridden the specific template through the “Custom Layout Update” area. So I moved the phtml files (renamed uniquely) the the master template and then did something like this in the “Custom Layout Option”
Where the template name is the new name.