Add .htaccess for URL rewriting and client-side routing

[devaraj3]

What changed

• Added public/.htaccess with Apache rewrite rules (automatically copied into dist/ at build time, same as robots.txt/sitemap.xml)

Why

• Direct visits to https://cadviewer.xyz/viewer were returning a server-level 404 — confirmed via a fresh incognito test after the previous merge
• Root cause: vite-react-ssg now builds viewer.html as a real static file at the build root, but Apache had no rule mapping the clean URL /viewer to that file
• This likely predates the SEO work entirely — nobody had tested a direct/fresh visit to /viewer before, since navigation always happened by clicking from the landing page
• The new rules: serve real files/folders as-is, map clean URLs to their matching .html file (e.g. /viewer → viewer.html), and fall back to index.html for anything else so unmatched paths still show the app's own 404 page instead of a generic host error page

Validation

• npm run build (confirm dist/.htaccess exists with the exact intended content)
• Live check after deploy: https://cadviewer.xyz/viewer loads correctly as a fresh direct visit (not just by clicking through from the homepage)
• Live check: https://cadviewer.xyz/ and https://cadviewer.xyz/sitemap.xml etc. still work normally (unaffected)

Notes

• No application code changed — this is purely a server routing rule
• Assumes Hostinger's origin server is Apache or Apache-compatible (e.g. LiteSpeed), which reads .htaccess — if this doesn't resolve it after deploying, the server may need a different config, worth checking with whoever manages the Hostinger account
• Local npm run preview won't reflect this fix, since .htaccess only applies on the real Apache server, not Vite's local preview — live verification is the real test

[vercel]

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
cad-viewer	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jul 26, 2026 10:33am