do you update in etc/hosts ?

no. how should that be updated?

Probably just a typo but you are saving it as

.htaccess

not

htaccess

?

Yes, it is called .htaccess, with the period in front.

Try this htaccess file I use on same mac

  <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
     RewriteEngine on
     RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^public
     RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
 </IfModule>

tried that, but it didn't work. the problem seems to be that apache isn't using the .htaccess file at all. i remove it and nothing changes.

Have you tried installing with a VM using Vagrant ?

check your console logs /var/log/apache2/error_log. the solutions to all my apache2 problem, I found in there.

I went thru the same issue. I can't remember exactly what the solution was but I think it was trying to rewrite in the wrong directory. I had an 404 error, initially i figured that it didn't use the .htaccess, but then console told me otherwise.

Add this to http-vhosts.conf file...

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
  Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
  AllowOverride All
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
</Directory>

Change the directory accordingly. You can also change the settings at a root level.

I was able to get things working after modifying my DocumentRoot at httpd.conf to /Users/username/Sites/

then modify the default .htaccess and add RewriteBase

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /your/folder/public

Then this will work on Mavericks.

Hope this helps.

@jtan1ph ... was exactly what i was looking for, thanks ...