How to rewrite directory for multiple level directories - .htaccess

Question

This is my .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
This is my project structure:
The idea is that all my HTML files are structured in the folder views, but I don't want my URL to be http://example.com/views/index but just http://example.com/index without the views-part.
This is working fine in the following case:
http://example.com/account/
But fails as soon as I try to access a file in the accounts-folder e.g: http://example.com/account/voeg-kind-toe
That results in a 404. Seems like this .htaccess solution only works for one-level directories.
Edit:
Interesting: If I place the bottom two lines on top (so placing the code to rewrite the view-part before the code to remove the php-extension); the php-extension works but the /views//part don't.

Answer 1

Create .htaccess like this
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/views/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /views/$1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?example.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ views/ [L]

Answer 2

As mentioned in my comment above, providing there are no other directives/conflicts then this should still "work" in a roundabout way. However, there is an issue with the following directive in the order you have placed it:
# check to see if the request is for a PHP file:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ /$1.php
You aren't testing for files in the /views subdirectory. But also, REQUEST_FILENAME does not necessarily contain what (I think) you think it does. When you request /account/voeg-kind-toe (an entirely virtual URL path) then REQUEST_FILENAME contains /account (it actually contains an absolute filesystem path, but I've kept it brief). So, the above is testing whether /account.php exists, not /account/voeg-kind-toe.php, or even /views/account/voeg-kind-toe.php - which is presumably the intention.
So, on the first pass, the above condition fails, no rewrite occurs, and processing continues...
The second rule then rewrites the request for /account/voeg-kind-toe to /views/account/voeg-kind-toe. Providing there are no further mod_rewrite directives, the rewrite engine then starts over. This time, /views/account/voeg-kind-toe is the input.
On the second pass, REQUEST_FILENAME is /views/account/voeg-kind-toe (since /views/account is a physical directory) and the request is rewritten to /views/account/voeg-kind-toe.php (since the filesystem check should be successful). Providing you have no other directives then processing should now stop.
This is working fine in the following case: http://example.com/account/
/account/ is simply rewritten to /views/account/ by the last rule.
Edit: Interesting: If I place the bottom two lines on top (so placing the code to rewrite the view-part before the code to remove the php-extension); the php-extension works but the /views//part don't.
The same process as above occurs, EXCEPT this all occurs in a single pass and so is less dependent on other directives that might occur later in the file.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the /views//part don't"?
Assuming you only have .php files within the /views directory and all URLs are intended to target the /views subdirectory and you don't need to reference directories directly then you could do this is a single directive and rewrite everything that does not contain (what looks like) a file extension to /views/<whatever>.php.
For example:
RewriteRule !\.\w{2,4}$ /views%{REQUEST_URI}.php [L]
The L (last) flag is required if you have other mod_rewrite directives that follow - to prevent additional processing.
This does mean you can't rely on the directory index. ie. You need to request /index (as in your example), not simply / to serve /views/index.php.
(You still need your first rule that removes .php from the requested URL - although this is only strictly necessary if you are changing an existing URL structure, where you previously used .php on the URLs.)