WAP Basics
WAP Homepages
WAP homepages are not very different from HTML homepages. The markup language
used for WAP is WML (Wireless Markup Language). WML uses tags - just like HTML -
but the syntax is stricter and conforms to the XML 1.0 standard.
WML pages have the extension *.wml, just like HTML pages have the extension *.html.
WML Tags
WML is mostly about text. Tags that would slow down the communication with handheld devices are not a part of the WML
standard. The use of tables and images is strongly restricted.
Since WML is an XML application, all tags are case sensitive (<wml> is not the same as <WML>), and
all tags must be properly closed.
WML Decks and Cards
WML pages are called DECKS. They are constructed as a set of CARDS, related to each other with
links. When a WML page is accessed from a mobile phone, all the cards in the page are downloaded from the WAP server. Navigation between the cards is done by the phone
computer - inside the phone - without any extra access trips to the server.
Example WML document:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml">
<wml>
<card id="HTML" title="HTML Tutorial">
<p>Our HTML Tutorial is an award winning
tutorial from W3Schools.</p>
</card>
<card id="XML" title="XML Tutorial">
<p>Our XML Tutorial is an award winning
tutorial from W3Schools.</p>
</card>
</wml> |
As you can see from the example, the WML document is an XML document. The
DOCTYPE is defined to be wml, and the DTD is accessed at www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml.
The document content is inside the <wml>...</wml> tags. Each card in the document is inside <card>...</card> tags, and
actual paragraphs are inside <p>...</p> tags. Each card element has an id and a title.
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