Permalinks and custom PHP application

Question

I have Wordpress installed in the root directory and configured properly using permalinks.

Alongside the Wordpress blog, I have a full-fledged custom developed php application with several pages. I want to not show the .php extension for any of the custom pages, but I'm now getting 404 errors for all the custom php pages.

http://url/blog-title-here (word press page - works)

http://url/register (custom php page - results in 404)

Here's what my .htaccess looks like:

# BEGIN WordPress 
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> 
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteBase / 
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L] 
</IfModule>

And here's what I have in httpd.conf

<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]
</Directory>

Answer 1

(EDIT) Take the custom rules outside the # Begin Wordpress (credit to Tim Malone)

You can check if the file exists in the root and load it before the Wordpress rules kick in:

# check for a file, i.e register.php
# load it if found and stop processing the rest of the rules with the [L] flag
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.php -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$1.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)  /$1.php [L]
</IfModule>

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L] 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L] 
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

http://url/register will then open the register.php file in the root.

If the file is not found, the Wordpress rules are processed.