Proper way to set up apache2 default config and htaccess in project directory - apache

Question

Dear people,
My goal is to set up the apache2's 000-default.conf and the .htaccess in a specific way, so the user will always be redirected to a specific php file (index.php for example) if they (the user) wants to access the web app, which I am building.
Examples :
example-app.local
example-app.local/hello-world
example-app.local/admin.php
example-app-local/../../../../my-passwords.txt
All of them should point to index.php. I followed several tutorials, but I guess I need a specific tutorial for me, so that I can fully understand the concepts of apache2 and its configurations. Feel free to judge me - I am alright with criticism.
What I have in my files is the following
1. The 000-default.conf file which is located in /etc/apache2/sites-available/
<VirtualHost *:80>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
...and loads of comments
2. The example-app.local.conf file which is located in /etc/apache2/sites-available/
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin admin#example.com
ServerName example-app.local
ServerAlias www.example-app.local
DocumentRoot "/var/www/example-app"
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
3. The .htaccess file which is located in /var/www/example-app/
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?url=$1 [QSA,R]
What I get is the following : "Apache default conf is like a god of the configurations and you can state specifically that you can AllowRedirect which will magically trigger the functionality of htaccess and there you need the even more magical syntax to make every request from the user point ONLY to the index.php" Is this correct?
What is working Apache is working. I am enabling and disabling configs via
sudo a2ensite 000-default.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
and then I restart and check that everything is fine via
sudo service apache2 restart
sudo service apache2 status
the status states active (running).
The content of /etc/hosts is also edited in a correct way, because I can actually see the content of the index.html file when I try to point my browser to the example-app.local page. I would also like to point out that I have php installed correctly - I tested it via the phpinfo function/method.
I tried several tutorials and none of them helped me. I believe I am missing something important and I am too 'blind' to see it, so I need someone to 'open' my eyes, so please - help me.
Best regards,
Yet another confused startup developer,
Bobkoo

Answer 1

Try tis one:
After RewriteEngine On try RewriteBase / and lose the slash before index.php
BTW you working on Windows... so the DocumentRoot "/var/www/example-app" should be something like C:\xampp\htdocs\project-folder