Mod_rewrite failing to silently redirect - php

Question

2 days of struggling and about a pound less of hair, I figure it's about time I ask for some help. I've recently migrated my project to a main sub-directory so that the structure is as follows:
-application/
-index.php
-signup/
-index.php
-signup_set.php
-css/
-js/
I've been trying to get mod_rewrite to do my work for me to exclude "application/" from all the urls. Here is where I got in my root .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On
#first round through, prepend 'application/' to request
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^application
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ application/$1 [L]
#second round through, if the new url is not directory or file, append .php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [L]
I may have a terrible understanding of regex/mod_rewrite, but this actually seems to partly work. Partly. The weird part about this is that when I route to a "pretty url" (e.g. www/signup) the url in the top bar is physically rewritten to include the "application/" (e.g. www/application/signup). So somehow this "silent" rewriting process is getting pretty loud...Any suggestions? I realize I could change my root directory but that would require rewriting of code referencing css/js files. I'm more curious than anything, just trying my hand at some htaccess. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks StackOverflow, you rock.
P.S. I'm running Apache on Windows 7 and using a virtual host (in case any of that is relevant)

Answer 1

The rules below work for me running Apache on Windows 7 using a virtual host. All I changed was the second RewriteCond.
RewriteEngine On
# Append trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(?:\.\w+|/)$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1/ [L]
# First round through, prepend 'application/' to request
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/application
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ application/$1 [L]
# Second round through, if the new url is not directory or file, append .php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.\w+$
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1.php [L]