Folders not found after mod_rewrite - .htaccess

Question

I have the following project structure:
There is a folder called 'views' containing all my HTML files.
The problem now is, that my url looks like this: http://example.com/views/index, http://example.com/views/account,...
How do I use mod_rewrite in my .htaccess to get rid of the views part in the URL?
I just want that when someone visits http://example.com, it actually sees the file http://example.com/views/index.php.
I've got very close with this:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(views)
RewriteRule (.*) /views/$1
But the problem is that now all my other folders are not found anymore. My CSS from the folder css ain't found, also my media files are not found, and also not my PHP.
Edit:
This is my new .htaccess:
# browser requests PHP
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^\ ]+)\.php
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)\.php$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# check to see if the request is for a PHP file:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ /$1.php
RewriteRule ^(css|js|media|partials|php)($|/) - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(views)
RewriteRule (.*) /views/$1
It gets very close. On the third line from the bottom I was able to exclude all folders for the rewrite_rule, resulting in media, css, js,... loading. But the problem is that that line, also removes the rewrite_rule above.
In the folder php there are files like example.php, test.php,... But I refer to it without extension. But that's not working anymore because the third rule from the bottom ignores ALL rewrite_rules; so also the rules removing the PHP-extension.
So how do I exclude folders for only a specific rewrite_rule?
Edit2:
Solved.
Correct .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
# browser requests PHP
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^\ ]+)\.php
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)\.php$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# check to see if the request is for a PHP file:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ /$1.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(views|css|js|media|partials|php)
RewriteRule (.*) /views/$1

Answer 1

Your current rule adds prefix /views to all URLs, including those starting with /css, /js, /media and so on. You need to exclude those.