Surreal CMS • A Simple, Cloud-based CMS

Frequently Asked Questions

Why a hosted CMS?

Because it takes a lot of time to install, configure, and maintain a content management system for each site you design. The truth is, most sites don’t need a robust, database-driven CMS. Most sites need something easier, and that’s where we come in.

Surreal lets you manage all your sites from one location. You never have to install anything. You never have to perform updates. You never need to remember tricky FTP passwords. We handle all that for you.

What’s new in V4?

V4 is the latest release of Surreal CMS and it comes packed with some great new features. If you’re migrating from V3, here are some things that you should know.

New Features

In addition, we’ve fixed some things and made other things better:

New Payment System & Tiered Pricing

V4 has been integrated with an entirely new payment system. Now you can manage your subscription and view your invoices directly through the CMS. In addition, we’ve introduced a tiered pricing model that makes Surreal even more affordable for those just getting started.

Users migrating to V4 will need to signup with the new payment system when they upgrade. We are no longer accepting PayPal in V4.

New Requirement for Content Regions

In V4, all content regions need to have an id attribute as well as the editable class. This change was necessary to provide support for editing included content. It also serves as a more intuitive labeling convention for content regions. For backward compatibility, the CMS will automatically add ids to any content regions missing them.

Upgrading From V3

V3 users can upgrade at any time. Unlike previous releases, we decided not to roll out V4 automatically. The reason for this decision was because of the significant changes in our features and interface. It’s important that everyone has plenty of time to update their documentation, inform their clients of what’s happening, etc.

Deadline to Upgrade

V3 will continue to operate until May 31, 2012. At that time, we will automatically transition all active accounts and redirect all V3 traffic to client-cms.com. If you have any concerns about this deadline, contact us so we can discuss them.

If you need to access the V3 documentation, it is located here.

What if my host locks FTP access?

Some web hosts restrict FTP access and require that you submit an IP address before connecting. Also, in rare cases, you may discover that your host has blocked us for some reason. In these cases, you can request that they whitelist our IP address:

72.10.49.160

This IP address is not the same as our old V3 address, so please have your hosting company update their system if necessary. For reference, our old IP was 70.32.121.174

Why does the editor wrap my content in <p> tags?

The editor strives to produce markup that is both valid and semantic. The use of paragraph tags is essential to this objective, despite its controversy. To better understand why paragraph tags are important from a technical perspective, refer to the article Why P Tags Are Your Friends.

So how do I prevent the gaps that they cause?

You can remove the gap that p elements create by eliminating the margin in your stylesheet:

.editable P {
    margin: 0;
}

Why do strange characters appear on my page after publishing?

If your webpages displays accented characters or other strange glyphs after publishing, you probably need to check your character encoding. Most likely, it is set to ISO-8859-1 instead of UTF-8.

Why are Flash videos appearing on top of the editor?

This is actually a Flash issue where the video appears to take on an infinite z-index. You can prevent this by setting the Window Mode to opaque.

Object Elements

Add a param element named wmode:

<object ...>
    <param name="wmode" value="opaque" />
</object>

Embed Elements

Add the wmode attribute:

<embed src="video.swf" wmode="opaque" ...></embed>

YouTube Videos

If you’re embedding a YouTube video via iframe, simply append wmode=opaque to the URL as a querystring variable:

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1234567890?wmode=opaque" ...></iframe>

Can I used shortcut keys in the editor?

Yes. The following is a list of keyboard shortcuts that will save you some time working with the editor:

Mac users can use command instead of ctrl.

Can I translate the CMS into my own language?

Please contact us If you’d like to translate the CMS into your own language or submit improvements for an existing translation.