Create a website using php/mysql

You might want to jumpstart your development by using a framework like CakePHP:
http://cakephp.org/

It has built-in authentication handlers:
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/components/authentication.html

You can alos try the newest framwork FuelPHP www.fuelphp.com

I use the Auth pachage to manmage logins (http://fuelphp.com/docs/packages/auth/types/login.html) and has several built-in classes to manage databases (http://fuelphp.com/docs/classes/database/introduction.html)

I recommend you to use some framework, i have best experiences with Nette (http://nette.org/en/) - it allows you to automatically create forms, helps with database access (you don't need to write SQL), just define forms.

Thanks - I looked at all 3 of them - which do you think is the quickest in creating and writing to the database

It's very difficult to answer tothis question: almost all framworks have their advantages and their difficulties, without considering that easiness and quickness depend on programmer's skills and quickness to learn. All frameworks promise, and often provide a set of quick methods to accomplish various task. I think you have to read documentation in the official sites, look at forum and see what seems to be more suitable to your needs.

You can also refer to this pages:

http://www.phpframeworks.com/
http://www.phpframeworks.com/top-10-php-frameworks/
http://www.phpframeworks.com/news/p/tag/best-php-framework

Here you can find info and links to official pages where you can find full documentation to read.

Hope this helps

The other way to go about this task is to write your own login system (not hard to do) and you can track your users using php sessions. You would be way more satisfied if you wrote it yourself instead of copying and pasting other peoples code. Of course if you don't want to learn php and mysql then this would be futile. I could help you if you want to try it yourself.

Amen to what Ray says.I have tried to learn frameworks, I went to a really good lecture on CakePHP, and found the learning curve to be really long and steep. I also keep a copy of the Sitepoint book at hand. It was the book I used to learn PHP and MySQL and I still refer to it.

Thanks for all the ideas. I will try to create the system coding php/mysql. The examples for the registration were rea;;y helpful. Is there also code examples for the backend so that the user can view all the records entered and modify or delete them if need be.
Thanks