Read Before Downloading
ChurchInfo is a web server application, which is nice because you can use it from anywhere with a browser but it isn't your typical download/install application. If you just want to run stand-alone on a PC please read the article below "Simple Installation on Windows". You can get the server infrastructure from xampp and then browse to localhost. The general instructions for installing on any server are in the distribution file Documentation/Readme.txt. There is a shared demo running on our web site; see article below "Try our demo". You can also register for a private demo that will run for a few weeks. See the article below "Private Demos Now Available". Your experience running a demo on our web site will be exactly the same as running your own installation.
Demonstration Videos
Introduction Video
This is a very quick demonstration video showing operation of our demo installation. You can use the demo any time starting from the link near the bottom of this page. If the shared demo gets too messed up please send me a message and I will reset it.
Financial Features Video
A lot of people have been watching the quick introduction video so I decided to make another one focusing on the deposit slip. I get a lot of questions about the financial features of ChurchInfo and this video answers many of the most common questions. If you would like to see more videos for other subjects please use the contact link to send me email.
Private Demos Now Available
We can now host private demo installations to facilitate your evaluation process. These demo installations are created in randomly named directories. The purpose of these private demos is to give you a chance to experiment in your own space. You can enter a little data, show your minister and your treasurer how it works, without having to worry about someone changing the admin password or deleting half the menu options. Your demo space will be private but not particularly secure or permanent. Please don't put a lot of work into it as it will be deleted in about a week unless you ask for more time. Assuming your evaluation goes well please plan to download and install in your own world as soon as possible.
Please don't put nonsense for contact information. Your contact information will only be used to communicate about ChurchInfo and will not be shared or sold for any other purpose. If you put nonsense in the Private Demo Form your demo will probably be recycled soon and you will get Error 404 page not found while trying to use your private demo.
To get started with your private demo use this link: Private Demo Form
To our international users
You can set the language by changing sLanguage in Admin->Edit General Settings. ChurchInfo currently supports the following settings: de_DE (German), en_AU (Australian English), fr_FR (French, not updated recently), it_IT (Italian, not updated recently), nl_NL (Dutch), pt_BR (Brazilian Portuguese), sv_SE (Swedish). If you would like to develop a new translation please let me know!
Simple Installation on Windows
I often get request from people who want to quickly install ChurchInfo on a computer running Windows. This is a great way to get started and experiment, although the real power of ChurchInfo is best appreciated when it is running on a server and accessed from multiple different computers. I use this procedure to install ChurchInfo for experimenting or development on a Windows laptop.
I have had good luck hopping back and forth between this stand-alone installation as a real server, simply using phpMyAdmin to back up and restore the database.
Here are the step-by-step instructions:
Install xampp for Windows. This provides Apache, PHP and MySQL. I tell it to run Apache and MySQL as services. There are some compatibility issues with the latest smoking-hot versions of MySQL and PHP, so I recommend using this nicely matured version of xampp:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/files/XAMPP%20Windows/1.6.7/
Unpack the churchinfo directory from the distribution into the directory C:\xampp\htdocs\churchinfo
Use Firefox to browse to: http://localhost
Click the phpMyAdmin link
Under "Create new database" type "churchinfo" and press Create
Select the Import tab
Press Browse...
Navigate to C:\xampp\htdocs\churchinfo\SQL\Install.sql and choose this file
Press the Go button
Select the Privileges tab
Press Add a new user
Set User name to "churchinfo", Host to "localhost", Password to "churchinfo", Re-type to "churchinfo", the press Go (bottom-right)
Now browse to: http://localhost/churchinfo
Log in with user name "admin", password "churchinfoadmin"
It will ask you to change the password immediately.
Try our Demo
We have a demo installation of the latest version 1.2.12 available here
Feel free to play with this database to see if ChurchInfo will work for your church. The passwords for this demo database are: “demoadmin” for Admin, “seemoney” for JohnFinancial, and “nomoney” for SuzieNotFinancial. This new version connects to the Google geocoder, which has better international support than the previous geocoder. There are many bug fixes and minor enhancements. See the links below if you find a bug or want to discuss an issue.
The demo sites includes a simple connection to schedule group meetings in WebCalendar, available here: http://www.churchdb.org/WebCalendar-1.2.b1.
Open Source
Open source software (OSS) is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain.
Our Software is maintained and developed by our users. If you have a talent and wish to contribute to our project please use the contact form and tell us about you.
Login: as Admin
Login: No Financial Access
Login: Financial Access
