Surreal CMS • A Simple, Cloud-based CMS

Documentation

White-labeling the CMS

Custom Branding

Surreal is intended to be a white-label solution, meaning your clients will only know you’re using our service if you tell them. We let you use your own logo and customize the theme. Our service operates on a generic domain called client-cms.com. Emails that get sent to your clients come from the “Content Management System”. Our whois record is completely private. Support requests from your clients go directly to you. We go the extra distance to ensure your secret won’t be discovered.

Uploading Your Logo

You can use your own logo in the CMS by uploading it in the Account section. For best results, we recommend using a 24-bit PNG image with a transparent background. If your logo is too big, the CMS will automatically resize it to fit. The maximum dimensions for logos are 330x70 pixels.

Selecting a Theme

Choosing a theme is as simple as selecting a color. Choose from a predefined palette or use the color picker to find the perfect hue.

User’s Manual

We also offer a white-label user’s manual for your clients. Feel free to customize it with your own logo and content. Last revised on May 20, 2012.

Using Your Own Domain

As part of our white-label service, the CMS is hosted on a generic domain called client-cms.com. If you prefer to use your own domain instead, you can follow these steps:

  1. Login to your domain registrar’s control panel
  2. Navigate to the DNS management section
  3. Create a CNAME record that points to client-cms.com

Once you’ve created the CNAME record, it may take up to 24 hours for DNS changes to propagate. After that, you will be able to access the CMS from the custom domain you selected.

For more detailed instructions on how to create a CNAME record, please contact your domain registrar.

Due to the way SSL certificates work, it is not possible to access custom domains over SSL without receiving a certificate error notification.

Building a Custom Login Form

You can create a form so users can login to the CMS directly from your website. All you need is a form like this one: 

<form method="post" action="http://client-cms.com/login">
    <p>
        Email<br />
        <input type="text" name="email" />
    </p>
    <p>
        Password<br />
        <input type="password" name="password" />
    </p>
    <p>
        <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="login" />
        <input type="submit" value="Login" />
    </p>
</form>

Users who enter invalid credentials will be taken to the standard login form to re-enter their email address and password.

Language Picker

You can also add a language dropdown to your form to let users select the language they want to use. For a reference of all available languages, view the source of the login page. 

<select name="language">
	<option selected="selected" value="en-us">English (US)</option>
	<option value="fr">Français</option>
	<option value="it">Italiano</option>
    ...
</select>

Redirect on Logout

To send the user to a custom URL on logout, include the following hidden element in your form. Otherwise, the user will be shown the login screen when they logout. 

<input type="hidden" name="logout-redirect" value="http://example.com/" />