Issue with mod_rewrite when accessing directory - php

Question

My code:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^article/([a-z]+)/?$ index.php?page=article&name=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)/?$ index.php?page=$1 [L]
I am using WAMP and had setup a Virtual Host.
In my index.php, there is code to get page passed and checks if it exists(in database). If not, display an error message. It works fine.
Eg: http://mysite/contactus/
But it will not work if I use a a directory name as page_name in the URL. Eg: http://mysite/images/. This will display page not found error (ie. checks database and no page found, so display "not found"). But it will not display images,css(linked file) in the page. Also, it shows http://mysite/images/?page=images in addressbar.
Like that, if I goto js folder which is used to store javascript files, above problem occurs. So, problem is caused if any subdirectory's name is passed as pagename.
How to solve this ?
When http://mysite/images/ is supplied, mod_rewrite is redirecting to http://mysite/images/index.php?page=images instead of http://mysite/index.php?page=images
Edit
Please tell me how to block hotlinking of files and directory, and redirect back to index page or send some browser header error ?
I tried this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST} [R,L]
RewriteRule ^article/([a-z]+)/?$ /index.php?page=article&name=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)/?$ /index.php?page=$1 [L]
Edit
New code(semi-working):
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
# remove trailing slash ONLY if it is not an existing folder
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1/ [R,L]
RewriteRule ^article/([a-z]+)/?$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/index.php?page=article&name=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)/?$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/index.php?page=$1 [L]
This code will clear the problem with not displaying pics and css when a directory name is mentioned. But whatever pagename i specify eg:http://mysite/contactus, it will goto URL: http://mysite/index.php?page=contactus. Even if I use a directory name eg: http://mysite/js, it will goto: http://mysite/index.php?page=js
I am very confused.

Answer 1

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^article/([a-z]+)/?$ index.php?page=article&name=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)/*$ /index.php?page=$1 [L]
you have to put the slash in front.
Edit: changed the ? to *

Answer 2

My understanding is that your script is for documents only, not images or other resources.
Then you should ignore them right away. Try adding this line right after RewriteBase like this :
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /rewrite/
RewriteRule ^/(images|js)/(.*)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^article/([a-z]+)/?$ index.php?page=article&name=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)/?$ index.php?page=$1 [L]
Then these subdirectories would be served right away, thus bypassing the next RewriteRule set.

Answer 3

For the problem with the directories I usually force a slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+[^/])$ $1/ [R]