how do you make it so somebody can register to gain access the that part of the site?

so  they make a username and password and it adds them to the passowrdprotect dir

*sigh*

is php easy?
are there programs out that od it like frontpage?

I look at PHP this way..

Most of the code you write in PHP is Html, well it is for me any. Just that instead of writing the html code...
<b>Hello this is bold</b>
for example, you would write
echo "<b>Hello this is bold</b>";
its easy once you learn it. But i recommend what Coon has said. There are so many scripts out there that will do anything you need to do for you. hotscripts is probably the best place for them

stunz