An Introduction to WAPWML What is WAP WAP

An Introduction to WAP/WML

What is WAP? • WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol. • WAP is for handheld devices such as mobile phones. • WAP is designed for micro browsers. • WAP is based on the Internet standards (HTML, XML and TCP/IP). • WAP consists of WML (Wireless Markup Language), WMLScript and WTAI (Wireless Telephone Application Interface).

WAP Forum • WAP is being developed under the guidance of the WAP Forum, founded in 1997 by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet. • WAP Forum website: http: //www. wapforum. org

Wireless Environment • • • Small screen size Limited processing power Lack of a full keyboard Slow connection speed Costly access

A Different Design • For the above reasons, WAP applications are typically made up of screenfuls of minimal text and lists of options, no graphic design. • Success is measured by how quickly the user can find information or make a transaction and get out, not how long a user will hang on the site.

Micro Browser, WMLScript • WAP uses a Micro Browser (eg. Openwave Mobile Browser) that makes minimal demands on hardware, memory and CPU. • Micro Browser displays info written in a restricted markup language, called WML. • Micro Browser also uses a reduced version of Java. Script, called WMLScript.

How WAP Works • WAP-enabled devices communicate with web server through a WAP gateway. • The gateway converts WAP requests into HTTP requests to the web server. • The gateway compiles the documents from the server into WAP Binary XML (WBXML) and send it to the phone.

What is WML? • WML stands for Wireless Markup Language. • WML is an application of XML, thus needs to be both valid (using WML elements according to the DTD) and well-formed (abiding by the stringent XML syntax rules). • WML documents have extension. wml

WML Decks and Cards • • • A WML application has one or more decks. A WML document is a deck. The max compiled deck size is 1. 4 KB. A deck contains some cards (pages). A card contains a few screens. A screen holds three to six lines of text.

WML tags • WML is mostly about text. • WML’s tags are similar to HTML’s, but tags that slow down communication with handheld devices are not a part of the WML standard. • The use of tables and images is strongly restricted. • See textbook for a summary of WML tags.

A Simple WML Document

Result Mobile Phone Display

Validate WML Documents • You may download an emulator program such as Openwave Simulator onto your computer. (http: //developer. phone. com/download/) • Or you can view WML pages using webbased emulators. (http: //www. wapemulator. com)