.htaccess - Hiding a directory in the URL while preserving other files

Question

I developed a giant studio of tools and each tool has its own directory in the /tools/ folder. So if you have a tool named example, the URL would be /studio-dir/tools/example/.

I'm trying to hide the /tools/ directory from URLs, while making sure other files outside of the /tools/ directory still work. For example, the /index.php file and /admin/ directory should remain.

I tried this, but it only caused massive 404 errors on everything. I know it's probably waay off, I suck with rewriting URLs. :P

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/tools/
RewriteRule ^/?([^/]+)$ /tools/$1 [L]

If you're still confused, I want:

http://www.example.com/studio/tools/example/index.php

To be able to load as:

http://www.example.com/studio/example/index.php

Whilst still keeping the /tools/ directory, and allowing other files outside of the /tools/ directory to load.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

You will need something like this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule    /studio/(.*) /studio/tools/$1    [L]
 </IfModule>

The problem is it will not work if the requested file is both in the studio-folder and the tools-folder.

But there no way to prevent this, as the server never knows if an URL is meant to refer to /studio/tools/ or /studio/

Edit: You can remove /tools/ from the visible urls like this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteRule    /studio/(.*) /studio/tools/$1    [L]
    RewriteRule    /studio/tools/(.*) /studio/$1    [L,R=302]
 </IfModule>