I'm about to start creating a new website that has standard user management (customers login and handling (change customer details etc) + my own functionality. I'm looking for the most efficient way to do it. I know PHP/CSS/Jquery quite well.
I have looked into Drupal as a starting point and found it too cumbersome for my needs. CodeIgniter and PHPcake seems not to be efficient because I'll spend time learning the platform instead of developing (which I would love to do, but not currently).
It seems that what I need is a skeleton of PHP site that simply handles users functionality. Surprisingly I couldn't find one.
Could you recommend a starting point such as an open source website code that I can easily cut the user management part from? Or another option which is more streightforward than learning a new platform/framework?
To be honest, to get started in a framework like CodeIgniter you shouldn't need more than 5 to 15 minutes of learning time (a CI "skeleton" is extremely easy to do).
Yes, it may have plenty of tools/helpers/libraries but for the most part the learning curve is extremely shallow.
As to the users functionality, there are a couple of user-made libraries that may suit your needs - a comprehensive list with detailed functionality can be found here: what-code-igniter-authentication-library-is-best