For a long time, we’ve been asking for your feedback and directing you to post them on our UserVoice page.  In theory, this was a good idea, as it allowed the community to suggest new features and vote on their priority.  This gave us a good insight into where you wanted us to take Surreal.  However, over time, we’ve come to realize that UserVoice isn’t the solution we were really looking for.

For one, you were thrown into an entirely new interface and required to register a separate username and password.  Many users simply stopped at this point, which means that if they didn’t contact us directly we never got the chance to hear their feedback.  You shouldn’t be forced to register with another site just to tell us what you think about our service.

We also felt that UserVoice’s interface doesn’t fit well with Surreal’s mantra.  Surreal is simple.  Providing feedback to us should be just as simple.  So from now on, we encourage you to send all your comments, suggestions, and all other feedback directly to us through Surreal’s Help & Support section.

We want to hear from you directly, and we want to take back that personal touch that we lost when we started sending folks elsewhere to tell us how we were doing.

A Brief History of Surreal CMS — By Cory LaViska

What most people don’t realize when they sign up for Surreal CMS is that it was built from the ground up by a single developer.  It was a bootstrapped side project that had absolutely no funding with the exception of a few dollars here and there from my personal account (mostly for web hosting).  So how did one person make a project with zero funding succeed?

A lot of time, energy, and persistence.

Since Surreal CMS started off as a side project, it took me almost an entire year to develop.  It was originally intended for use by my own clients, but quickly evolved it into a publicly available service as more and more people inquired about it.  That’s when I decided to set my focus entirely on Surreal CMS.  I stopped accepting client work and spent all of my free time developing, marketing, and supporting it.

Despite the fact that I had no prior marketing experience and a very small advertising budget, I was able to spread the word through our blog and with inexpensive banner ads through BuySellAds.com.  I eventually opened an AdWords account and set a low daily spending limit to try it out.  A few months later, I began running print ads in .net Magazine and Web Designer Magazine.  As Surreal began to grow, so did its advertising budget.  Sure, this meant less money going into my own pocket, but it was an opportunity to invest in a service that I was (and still am) very passionate about.

For those who remember our very first, moon-themed logo—wow, was it ugly!  To save money, we bartered with a designer for a more professional one (the eclipse-themed logo), which we used until December 2009.  The following January, we redesigned the marketing site and obtained a new, professionally-designed logo.  (The marketing site has since seen another redesign, but the same logo remains.)

Over time, Surreal CMS achieved media coverage through popular sites such as Nettuts+, WebDesignerDepot.com, Inspired Magazine, and others.  This, of course, helped boost traffic and got more people using the service, but our ability to offer quality support in a timely fashion (often within hours or even minutes of a request coming in) really impressed people.  Many designers who didn’t have an immediate use for our service vowed to come back as soon as they got the chance—and many of them did!  I attribute this kind of patronage to the quality of service that you can only receive from a small business.

From the start, we setup a UserVoice page that let people post feature requests and suggestions publicly.  This has been an important factor in knowing which direction to go with Surreal.  I can’t remember exactly when, but we eventually setup a Twitter account and a Facebook page as well.  Social media has turned out to be a fun and inexpensive way to connect with potential and existing users.  I would say it’s a must-have for any tech-oriented business.

As with any application, people are always asking about new features.  Since its launch, Surreal CMS has seen a number of updates.  We’ve added support for over 15 languages, custom welcome messages, customizable toolbar options, support for custom paths (for documents, images, and media), a built-in Tidy tool, an image editor, a Google Analytics dashboard, change notifications, repeatable regions, and too much more to mention.  We even overhauled the entire interface back in January to look more professional, and more updates are scheduled for Spring 2011.

As a thank you, and to celebrate this exciting milestone, we are offering a $100 off coupon for new annual Surreal CMS subscribers.  Just use the coupon code 10000 when signing up to apply the discount.  This coupon will be good for the entire month of October 2010.

Thanks again for helping Surreal CMS become one of the most popular simple CMS solutions on the Web!

To enable this feature, go to the Advanced section in your website’s configuration panel: Websites > Configure > Advanced

As always, we love feedback, so feel free to send us your thoughts and suggestions!

Alright, we all know that you can’t get something for nothing.  But there’s more to the story than meets the eye.  It seems as though Adobe wants more than just your money.  They want your web hosting, too.  The following post comes directly from the InContext Editing forum:

The hosting was one of the top problems in using ICE and the shear number of FTP servers and different implementations and settings made difficult to support everything. Even for a web professional, FTP can raise problems and cause support incidents.

The integration of InContext Editing in Business Catalyst should help us solve this problem, as we’ll have a single FTP server which is in our back yard. This why I think you will not have to solve server problems and have time to focus on what’s important: creating great websites for your customers.

Adobe’s excuse for not allowing you to host your own websites in BC is that they can’t support multiple FTP servers? Ouch.  But wait, it gets better:

On the BC system hosting, you cannot run PHP, ColdFusion or ASP code.

Yes, you read that correctly.  You cannot run any type of server-side scripting on your Business Catalyst-hosted websites. Instead, Adobe believes that they can “cover most of your needs” with “predefined modules”:

The system comes with a large number of predefined modules that you can use directly. [...]  Although we’re not using or supporting PHP, I am pretty sure that we can cover most of your needs with the current system.

In essence, InContext Editing has gone from a flexible, FTP-in-and-start-editing system to a restrictive, out-of-the-box application.  Why?  Probably because it’s easier and less expensive for Adobe to support.  Unfortunately for designers, this simply isn’t acceptable for clients who are used to the flexibility of what server-side languages have to offer.  In my personal experience, 99% of the time clients want something just a little different that what “the box” has to offer.

Considering an Alternative

My suggestion to anyone using Adobe InContext Editing is to consider looking into alternative content management solutions.  Our company, A Beautiful Site, LLC., offers one of the leading simple CMS services on the web.  Here’s a quick breakdown of what you get with Surreal CMS that you will allegedly not get with the future version of InContext Editing:

• The ability to host your own websites
• The flexibility to use any type of server-side language you choose
• Access from your own domain/subdomain with the ability to theme and brand the CMS as your own solution
• An inexpensive pro plan that can manage unlimited websites
• One-on-one email support (both free and pro accounts)
• Competitive features that are continuously being enhanced and improved
• Google Analytics integration for pro users

Having been around since 2008, Surreal CMS has grown steadily because of their dedication to serving you, the designer, not a board room full of profit-seeking shareholders.  That’s why they have already begun working on supporting repeating regions, an essential InContext Editing feature, which is expected to be available as soon as this summer.

To give you an idea of what some people are saying, here are some actual quotes from Adobe InContext users:

“The only reason I bought Dreamweaver CS4 was because of InContext.”

“Unreal, we [...] purchased DreamWeaver CS4 because of the supposed “included” content manager InContext.”

“Today I made a decision for the company. We will no longer publish ANY pages for use with InContext Editing.”

“InContext is a great idea, but the price should be already included into [DreamWeaver's] price. This is where it is starting to become a little evil.”

“As creative suite owner i expected InContext Editing to come as a bonus.”

“If Adobe chooses to charge for InContext, I definitely will have to drop it.”

“There are other options out there I’m not afraid to use, since I don’t want to be nickeled and dimed to death!”

“People are upset that they paid x-amount of dollars for Dreamweaver and will be charged an extra fee to use InContext.”

“Is this bait and switch? Adobe has come down a notch in their reputation IMO.”

Those are all from the first page.  In fact, there are hundreds of other posts on the same topic, many of which reaffirm these same points.  Amidst all of the confusion, however, one thing is clear: a lot of Adobe’s customers feel like they’ve been cheated.  Many claim to have purchased InContext Editing as a service that came advertised with Creative Suite 4.  Adobe argues that was simply not the case:

Paid Dreamweaver feature?  Not really. We intend to run the service as a standalone editing service. However, we want or intend to give Dreamweaver users some integration features that would help them create editable websites faster, using Dreamweaver’s design view and InContext Editing commands. This was the message we tried to send, but seems that it needs more clarity.

Although there are some obvious ethical issues at hand here, Adobe is covered legally because their licensing agreement essentially guarantees nothing at all to end users.  Of course people aren’t going to be happy about it, but Adobe sees more money that can be made elsewhere.  Specifically in their Business Catalyst service.  From the InContext Editing website:

InContext Editing will be discontinued as a standalone service in 2011. However, InContext Editing has become a part of Adobe Business Catalyst®, a hosted application for building and managing online businesses that can also import your existing website. Find out more about Business Catalyst and how you can continue to use InContext Editing beyond 2011.

Indeed, this does seem like a classic “bait and switch” tactic, even if it was a simple miscommunication on Adobe’s part.

The FAQ page on Adobe’s website stated the following:

Why is Adobe discontinuing the development of InContext Editing?
Improved content management support was the most commonly requested feature from customers. To meet our customers’ demands for more advanced functionality, InContext Editing will be integrated with Business Catalyst, our online business platform. In addition to offering an advanced yet easy-to-use content management system, Business Catalyst combines more than five essential online business tools in one integrated solution. It enables web professionals to build what their clients need, whether it’s a simple informative website or a powerful online store — quickly and without programming.

Also according to their FAQ page, technical support will also be discontinued for the InContext Service.  That leaves current Adobe InContext Editor users with few options.  Either subscribe to a Standard ($995) or Premium ($1995) plan with Adobe’s Business Catalyst platform, or find themselves an alternative simple CMS solution for their websites.

It literally takes about 15-20 seconds to set this up if you already have a Google Analytics account.  We even made a short video to show you how it all works!

The other feature we released was syntax highlighting for (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and XML files, courtesy of the CodeMirror project.  This is available to both free and pro users.

Keep an eye out in the coming months for more great features and, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up for a free account over at Surreal CMS!

As you can probably imagine, operating an online service for thousands of users means there is a lot of pressure to get things right.  You end up making a lot of promises and, at times, it can be difficult to accommodate everyone’s needs.  Part of our goal as a service provider is to balance out all of the features that people want with what is practical, feasible, and within the scope of what the average user expects to see from our service.  When the time comes, we combine all of the feedback that gets emailed to us with the suggestions that get posted on UserVoice to come up with a list of features that might make it into a future release.  Once we have a very concise list of ideas, we start evaluating, prioritizing, planning, and developing them.

With that in mind, here is an overview of some of the major features that went into this latest release.

User Interface

When we decided to revamp the user interface, we new it would be an extensive undertaking, but the end result was worth it.  What you may not realize at first glance is that the entire interface was completely rewritten for this version — from the markup all the way to the scripting that powers most of the functionality.  This was necessary for a number of technical reasons, but at the same time it allowed us to comply more closely with W3C standards.  Here is a glimpse of what the new UI looks like:

Character Encoding

Aside from the interface, we also took on some back-end encoding issues that previously made it impossible to support languages with characters outside of the ISO-8859-1 spectrum.  This includes languages such as Chinese, Russian, Polish, and many others.  Fortunately, this is no longer an issue with the new version. (You may have already noticed that Polish and Chinese are already available.)  We’re looking forward to translating Surreal CMS into a variety of new languages, so if you’re multilingual and we don’t support your language yet, get in touch with us and you may just earn yourself a free pro account.

Image Editor

This was something that people have been requesting for quite awhile, and we wanted to make sure that it made the cut this time.  The image editor allows you to resize, flip, rotate, and crop images without leaving the CMS.  You can access the image editor from within the File Manager by selecting a picture and clicking Edit Image. (You can also access the Image Editor if you have an <img class=”editable”> in your webpage.)

Customizable Toolbars

In the previous version, you could give your editors a Limited or a Full version of the rich-text editor.  Now, you can turn each and every button on and off, as necessary.  We’ve also enabled a few more options, including font size, foreground color, background color, underline, and a button for uploading and inserting documents.  (You can customize your editor’s toolbars by going to Editors > Configure > Advanced.)

Custom Paths

With the addition of custom paths for documents, images, and media, we were finally able to fix the permissions in the File Manager.  When you set custom paths, editors will be restricted to those locations when uploading, deleting, renaming, etc. In other words, your editors will only be able to upload and modify files and folders in the locations that you specifically set for documents, images, and media.  (You can set these paths on a per-website basis by going to Websites > Configure > Advanced.)

This is obviously more secure than allowing editors full access to every folder in their website, especially for novice users.  If necessary, you can re-enable full access to the File Manager by turning on that button in the editor’s toolbar.  Also, if you don’t set any custom paths, your editors will still have access to the entire website via the File Manager.

Welcome Emails

Many users wanted the option of disabling the welcome message that gets sent when editors are created.  In the new version, you can uncheck the Send Welcome Message button prior to adding an editor and the temporary password will be displayed on screen rather than being emailed.  You can also reset passwords without sending an email as well.

For those of you who would like to continue using the welcome messages, you’ll notice that they now come from Your Name <you@your-email.com>.  That is, the emails will appear to come from the name and email address that we have on file for you.  (You can change your name and email address by visiting My Account > Preferences.)

Larger Max Upload Size

We’ve increased the upload size from 10MB to 20MB.  This was actually updated a few months back, but we never formally announced it.

Help & Support Tab

By default, when editors submit a support request it gets emailed directly to their designer.  Now, you have the option to set a custom URL for the support tab, which can be used to direct editors to a custom support page.  You also have the option of completely disabling the Help & Support tab in case you’ve given your users alternative instructions for submitting help requests.

Search Filter

To help you sort through large numbers of websites, webpages, and editors, we’ve added a search filter to each page.  Whenever there are more than 10 items in any of these lists, you’ll be able to find exactly what you’re looking for with just a key keystrokes — no more scrolling, browsing, and squinting.

Payment History for Pro Accounts

If you’ve signed up for a pro account, you can see your complete payment history by accessing My Account > Payment History.

What’s to Come?

We have a lot more great ideas and features in store for you in upcoming releases but, for starters, we’re going to be working on some white-label documentation that you can provide to your clients for training purposes.  This will include both screencasts and printable material that you can hand out to them in person.

As usual, please keep the feedback coming!  You can submit your ideas through our UserVoice page or send them directly to us from the Help & Support section inside the CMS.

And, of course, if you’re reading this but you haven’t signed up for a free account with Surreal CMS yet, there’s never been a better time.

beta.edit-content.com

That said, next weekened we will be releasing the newest version of Surreal CMS.  We’ve already received incredible feedback from some of our users, but now it’s time to hear from the entire Surreal CMS community.

What to Expect in the New Release

Here are just some of the new features and enhancements that you can expect to see:

Improved User Interface / Icon Set

The general idea is the same, but we’ve made the CMS a lot cleaner and much more professional looking.  Now you can see at a glance how many webpages each site has and which websites editors are assigned to.  We also got a shiny new logo :)

Image Editor

Now you can resize, crop, flip, and rotate images right from the CMS:

Customizable Rich-text Editor Toolbar

Now with more options than ever!  You can easily enable or disable every feature in the toolbar on a per-editor basis.

Custom Paths for Images, Documents, and Media

Now you don’t have to worry about editors cluttering up the root directory with documents, images, and other files.  When you set custom paths, editors will only have access to those directories on the website.  (Websites > Configure > Advanced)

Edit CSS, JavaScript, and XML Files

Now you can enable CSS, JavaScript, and XML files as if they were regular webpages.  (Syntax highlighting is coming soon!)

Optional Welcome Email

Because sometimes it’s more convenient to send editors a welcome email yourself.  There is also a no-email option to reset editor passwords now.

Purge Webpage History

As a Designer, sometimes you may not want your editors to access certain page revisions.  Now you can purge one or all revisions of each webpage.

View Payment History (Pro Accounts Only)

Now you can see all of your payment history under the My Account tab.

During the Release

We really hope that you’ll enjoy all of the new features that we’ve been working on for you.  In the past, we’ve launched enhancements with virtually zero noticable downtime.  We plan on carrying on that same tradition on launch day next week, so you have little to worry about.

Speaking of launch day, the new version will be available a week from today on Saturday, January 23, 2010.

Update (23 January 2010): The new version is up and running, so go check it out!

Awesome news! Our online content management service Surreal CMS launched its affiliate program last week. If you have a Web Design blog or other website that a lot of designers and developers visit, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

Surreal CMS is offering $20 for each monthly subscriber and $100 for each annual subscriber that you refer. It’s free to sign up, there’s no minimum that you need to earn to get paid, and payments are sent via PayPal at the beginning of each month. For a content management system, these are some pretty generous commissions!

Once you’re signed up, you’ll get full access to the Affiliate Dashboard where you can get text links and banner ads to copy & paste into your website. You can also track your commission as your referrals sign up for the service.

If you’ve been looking for an easy way to earn some extra income from your website, the Surreal CMS Affiliate Program is exactly what you’ve been looking for!