Quick Start

Surreal CMS is a unique content management system. It lives in the cloud instead of on your server, so you don't have to install it. Instead, we connect to your website using FTP, FTPS, SFTP, or Amazon S3 and publish everything directly to your server.

I like to say, you host the website, we host the CMS.

This page will help you start using Surreal CMS in just three steps. This is a high-level example. For a more detailed tutorial, see connecting your website.

1. Connect Your Website

First you need to connect your website. You'll need to know your FTP, FTPS, SFTP, or Amazon S3 credentials to complete this step. If you're not sure what this is, contact your web host.

2. Enable Pages

Next you'll need to enable the pages you want to edit. From the sidebar, select Enable Pages. You'll see a list of files on your server — click on the ones you want to edit and they'll appear in the page list.

3. Define Content Regions

The last thing you need to do is define content regions. You can do this by adding a unique id and class="cms-editable" to various elements in your webpages. Remember, you'll only be able to edit the parts of the page you've explicitly tagged!

You can define content regions in the CMS using our source editor (look for Edit Source in the sidebar) or you can do it locally before uploading your website.

Now that you know the basics, let's dive a little deeper and connect your first website!