remove php from uri for multiple applications

[eluser]tomas[/eluser]
So I had a look at how to remove index.php from my urls and that works just fine ... but I'd like to do the same for multiple applications setup

Code:

application/app1
application/app2
application/app3
system/
...
app1.php
app2.php
app3.php

so basically I have a php for each application and I would like urls such as

Code:

http://www.mysite.com/app1/action_name
http://www.mysite.com/app2/action_name
http://www.mysite.com/app3/action_name

I've set the index_page value to empty

Code:

$config['index_page'] = '';

and used the following .htaccess for the default app and everything worked fine

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

but when I try

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^app1/(.*)$ app1.php?/$1 [L]

I'm seeing the CI's 404 page, but navigating manually to

Code:

http://www.mysite.com/app1.php?/action_name

works

any ideas? has anyone used this kind of setup before?

thanks