Public folder with htaccess?

For apache you need to configure httpd.conf.
...
#
# DocumentRoot: The directory out of which you will serve your
# documents. By default, all requests are taken from this directory, but
# symbolic links and aliases may be used to point to other locations.
#
DocumentRoot "/path/to/public"
<Directory "/path/to/public">
...

Simpler is always better