i made an attempt at editing the news_item.html to put my own custom layout to how the news appears on the home page. however, when i clear the templates_c folder and refresh my browser, nothing changes.

i edited the news_item.html from ../modules/news/templates/ which, as i understand it, is the right file to edit for this particular scenario.

you can view the site here

thanks in advance.

It's because the templates are loaded from the database, not from the files.

You can update the news module, so the templates on database will be rebuild from the template files (Admin Panel > System > Modules, and click on 'Update' picture of module news).

But the better way to do this is to make a copy of the default template set and edit the set you just created (Admin Panel > System > Templates, and click on 'Clone' link of the default template).

thanks a lot! that totally helped!