I understand, my change is totally compatible… but I have try before this way to override and I try again now and is not possible, the form only change when I change the “official” file, not with the theme, and of course reload, clear cache from OJS and manually…
I am using in my machine for proofs OJS 3.1.1.0, maybe your introduce some changes in news version? do you remember some issue about change backend from a theme?
Update: I upgrade to 3.1.1-2 and is the same thing… not working. I am using defaultManuscript for made tests, so in this theme, I add a submission folder with submissionMetadataFormTitleFields.tpl file but I think is not reading this file