Developing multiple websites locally with MAMP

Hey Kevin. Thanks for the quick response, man! I do have an index.php file in the directory, and that's what is so confusing. I set the top of my htaccess, which is in the project's directory, to this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^!localhost:8888$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://localhost:8888/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteBase /

I'm still a novice at htaccess, so there could be a clue there.

Curious, have you tried it without your .htaccess file? I'm a novice too with them, but it looks like you're not wanting to require www in the url (which is fine).

I haven't tried that. I hesitate to simply because it's a large php site I'm setting up a local development environment for, and there are dozens of interlinked pages already on the site. I'd like to keep it a fully functioning replica of the site in production if possible.

mmm....I tried you .htaccess file on a test site I have, and it didn't cause any unwanted behavior. So it's in production now? And you're duplicating a dev site to work on it?

Yep. I copied the files via ftp of the live site over to my local machine where I am running MAMP.

To test the htaccess file idea, what about just removing it from the directory and putting it somewhere like the desktop, restarting the server, and see if it behaves as you want. If there is no change, just move it back, restart the server and all should be as it was.

I also wonder, depending on the size of this thing, if there isn't some other logic that is playing with routing. When I first read this I assumed this was a brand new site, with two files, index.php and page.php.

Does this site use some sort of framework, MVC logic?

Same thing happening. Blank page on what should be the index. It's a custom template our church hired a development company to build for us, now I and a designer develop and manage the site. It is indeed structured with MVC patterns.

Is it an MVC library like Cake, CodeIgnighter, Laravel, Slim....or is it a custom MVC?

I believe it's all custom.

Fun...lol. A quick test I'd try is set up another simple, empty project with a index.php, and page.php, and see if your localhost does route to index.php by default.