Question about the .htaccess file and index.php

I've installed Omeka - runs fine, however, I must explicitly type in 'omeka/index.php' to start -- the .htaccess file doesn't include anything to redirect the usual index.htm -- what can I do to make it easier to access the site?

Especially if you are on a hosted server, it might be worth double-checking that Omeka's .htaccess was successfully copied. My first guess is that a default .htaccess file on the server is there, not Omeka's

Appreciate your response, but it is definitely 'there' in the omeka directory. I added the following line, which I thought would work (but it had no apparent effect):

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

I can definitely open the site, but I have to explicitly type the URL as www.mysite/omeka/index.php (and the admin page as "www.mysite/omeka/admin/index.php)

But...shouldn't the 'DirectoryIndex' line work???

If this is what's there in the .htaccess file, it might be that the server doesn't have the rewrite module installed. That'd be a question for the hosting provider or sysadmin.

You might also try the suggestion in the comments of the .htaccess file, just below RewriteEngine on, about setting the RewriteBase

# Remember to enable display_errors on development environments only.

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
    php_value display_errors 0
    php_flag register_globals off
</IfModule>

RewriteEngine on

# If know that mod_rewrite is enabled, but you are still getting mod_rewrite errors,
# uncomment the line below and replace "/" with your base directory.
# RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^admin/ - [C]
RewriteRule .* admin/index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* index.php

<FilesMatch "\.(php|ini)$">
 Order Allow,Deny
 Deny from all
</FilesMatch>

<Files index.php>
Allow from all
</Files>

# Uncomment the lines below in order to enable caching of some files via Apache (after a finished site has gone live)
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
#  <FilesMatch "\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$">
#       ExpiresActive on
#       ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 day"
#   </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Did some google searching and found the following on this site:
http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php

1. you only need to do this once per .htaccess file: Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on

2. RewriteRule ^(.*)\.htm$ $1.php [NC]

Now I no longer need to explicitly type in the 'index.php'

Great! Glad that works now!