.htaccess Always hide a certain subdirectory from URL - regex

Question

I'm trying to hide a subdirectory from the URL with .htaccess. I've got a PHP script which is executed everytime a client enters the website. It's index.php in root Apache directory. This script determines the language to use in the website and redirects to the target directory. English is my default language so what I need "en" directory to be hidden in the URL and at the same time redirect all the URL requests from root directory to "en" folder so they don't produce a 404 HTTP error. I partially achieved this with the following lines:
#Remove en/ directory from URL
RewriteRule ^$ en/
#Forward all the requests to en/ directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ en/$1
When requests are forwarded to "en" directory this is displayed again in the URL. This would be the flow:
User types: http://domain.com
index.php Redirects to http://domain.com/en because that's the detected language
.htaccess Rule hides /en directory, leaving the URL http://domain.com
Client types http://domain.com/panel to access their user panel
.htaccess Redirects to http://domain.com/en/panel
How can I remove "en" directory leaving the URL http://domain.com/panel after the last action in the list? Is there a better way to manage this behavior?
Current rules:
Options -Indexes +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/?$ en/ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^((?!en/).*)$ en/$1 [L,NC]
#Prevent direct access to PHP Scripts
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} ^$
RewriteRule \.php$ - [R=404,L]
#Remove WWW
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Answer 1

Have it this way:
Options -Indexes +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
RewriteEngine On
#Remove WWW
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L,NE]
# add a trailing slash if public/$1 is a directory
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/en/$1 -d
RewriteRule ^(.*?[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [L]
#Prevent direct access to PHP Scripts
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \.php[?/\s] [NC]
RewriteRule ^ - [R=404,L]
RewriteRule ^/?$ en/ [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^((?!en/).*)$ en/$1 [L,NC]
Clear your browser cache and test your flows.