Overview
Surreal CMS accesses your already-existing website(s) via FTP or SFTP and scans your webpages for editable regions. These regions are defined by class attributes that you place in your HTML prior to accessing them in the CMS. Based on the element type, Surreal will provide a method of editing that is suitable for that content region.
Although Surreal tries to be as flexible is possible, there may be instances where you experience unexpected results during publishing. For best results, and to prevent unanticipated behavior, your webpages should adhere to the following guidelines before you begin editing them in the CMS.
Designers & Editors
As a user of Surreal CMS, you have designated yourself as a designer. The designer’s job is to define content regions in webpages and enable them in the CMS. The designer may also edit webpages, but he/she may want to designate an editor for this task.
When you add an editor, a generic email will be sent out containing the editor’s password and a link to Surreal’s generic login page. Editors are only allowed access to the website(s) you select for them. They do not have the ability to add new websites, enable webpages, or change the theme/logo in Surreal. Editors will experience the same theme and logo that their designer sees.
While there may be any number of editors per website, there may only be one designer per subscription.
Browser Compatiblity
Surreal is compatible with Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 3+, Safari 3+, Opera 9+, and Google Chrome. Internet Explorer 6 users will be instructed to upgrade or download a supported browser before accessing the CMS.
Backup Your Websites!
Before using Surreal CMS, and as a good practice in general, you should always keep a backup of your website(s) in a separate location from your live site(s). Since Surreal remotely accesses files, any changes you publish via the CMS become permanent. Although Surreal keeps track of most webpage revisions, you should not rely on this as a last-resort recovery method for your webpages.
Surreal CMS is not responsible for data loss resulting from your use of the service. Please refer to our Terms of Service for more information about our usage policy.
Help & Support
For Designers
The Help & Support tab offers designers an easy method of contacting Surreal CMS support. It is recommended that you search the FAQs before submitting a Help Request. Please be as detailed as possible in your correspondence so we may better assist you, and please allow up to two business days for a response (although normal response times are typically much faster). Although our interface supports many languages, we are only able to respond to help requests in English.
For Editors
When a help request is submitted by an editor, the request will be sent directly to their respective designer via email. If the designer requires assistance from Surreal CMS support, they must submit the request themself. Since Surreal CMS is designed to be “your” solution, we will never contact your editors without your permission. This gives you the opportunity to provide your clients with excellent, one-on-one customer service and also keeps the cost down for us.
It is possible, although not recommended, to disable this feature for editors in the My Account section of the CMS. You can also set a custom URL where editors will be directed to whenever they select the Help & Support tab.
A Note About Security
Surreal CMS takes every precaution to prevent the unauthorized access of subscriber login information by third-parties. We use 128-bit AES encryption to safeguard your credentials from potential attackers. We also run scheduled penetration testing against our software to maintain the highest level of security possible.
For security-conscious users, you can access the CMS over SSL by visiting https://edit-content.com/. Please note that, due to the way SSL certificates work, it is not possible for pro users to access the CMS from your own domain/subdomain over SSL without receiving a certificate error notice.
For more information about the security of your login information, please refer to our Terms of Service.
Known Issues with Certain Web Hosts
Yahoo! Web Hosting
Many users have reported intermittent connection issues while using Yahoo!’s hosting services. We believe that this is a security feature that Yahoo! has implemented and have been unsuccessful in finding a work-around. We suggest using an alternate hosting service if possible.
Byet Internet Services (byethost.com)
Users have reported that they are unable to connect to their websites over FTP when using Byet’s free hosting platform. We suggest using an alternate hosting service if possible.