My website uses a custom CMS and as such each page is viewed by putting in a name.

i.e: site.com/?page=news

However I have been trying to get the .htaccess file to rewrite the menu items (news, about, pictures etc) to faux-folders.

/news should rewrite to /?page=news however I have a problem.

My current code works but not when you add a trailing slash to the faux-URL :(

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(news|about|calendar|pictures|contact)/*$ /?page=$1

This works if I put in something like /news or /pictures but I'm having problems when you add a trailing slash such as /news/ or /pictures/.

The website loads the correct page but somehow fudges up the actual folder so no CSS gets applied and no images are applied. Its as if the "working directory" for the website is now /pictures/ instead of just the main folder so relative paths in the page content break!

Any ideas? Tried a number of things and much Googling...

what's the url so I can debug it

Hmm I might just leave it with [R].

I feel your pain. Debugging rewrite rules is a nightmare. Regex gives me headaches.