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The Age Of WAP

by acbuddy

I have been designing websites since 1996. In the beginning, it
was easy. Someone called me with a project, they sent me the
content for their website, which I would then upload to Microsoft
Frontpage or a text editor, insert some HTML tags for formatting
and some graphics to make the site colorful, and the job was
finished.

The wireless revolution changed everything. Almost every
electronic device now comes equipped with access to the web and
email. Palm tops, laptops, cell phones, even computer screens
installed in automobiles are now connected to the internet. The
web browsers and operating systems installed on these wireless
devices are often very different from what is installed on an
ordinary desktop PC.

Many elements of the HTML programming language are not
compatible with some of these wireless platforms. As a result,
web design has completely changed. Cross-platform programming
languages and specifications have been created so that websites
can be viewed on any PC or wireless gadget.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how and why
programming has changed, you are now ready for a brief
introduction to the main topic of this article, WAP (Wireless
Application Protocol). WAP is an open international standard for
applications that use wireless communication. Its principal
application is to enable access to the internet from a mobile
phone or PDA.

Before we begin to discuss Wireless Application Protocol, you
should first know a little bit about a language called XML. It is
a language that enables programmers to define data without
telling the web browser how to display it, because XML files are
simple text files. As a result, XML data can be displayed on any
web browser. This is significant, because as we have already
established, wireless web browsers have a hard time with HTML.
XML solves this dilemma by putting data in a format that be
displayed across all platforms.

WAP browsers are browsers that run on wireless devices such as
cell phones. The WAP protocol understands WML (Wireless Markup
Language), which is written in XML. In addition to XML, WML uses
some Javascript, which is referred to as WMLScript. However, the
Javascript is not actually coded directly into the WML page; it
is referenced by using a script URL, which must be compiled into
byte code on a server before the Javascript can run on the
wireless browser.

Wireless Markup Language uses tags, just like HTML. However, the
tags are case sensitive. The most important tag that is used is
the card tag. WAP pages are known as decks, and they consist of a
set of cards, which contain code sandwiched between the opening
and closing tags of each card. The cards within the document are
then linked to each other.

When a wireless web browser prepares to present the contents of
a web page to the user, it downloads all of the cards in the deck
at the beginning when the page first loads, and then is able to
display the web page and everything in it without making any
additional visits to the server.

Within the code, there are usually two main types of tasks
called go and previous. The go task tag causes a switch to a new
card within the deck. The previous task tag causes the action to
switch to the card that was accessed previously. The other two
types of tasks worth noting are the refresh task, which will
refresh any variables that are being used and refresh the screen
if the variables appear on the screen, and the noop task, which
stops any further operations from being performed.

There are many other nifty tasks and elements that are used in
WML such as the timer element. An example of the timer element in
action would be to cause a message that is generated by a task in
one of the cards to appear on the screen for 3 seconds before
disappearing and moving on to the next card in the deck.

If you make a living as a web designer, you need to learn to
create pages that are WML enabled for WAP browsers. If you are
unable to program a web site so that it can be displayed on a
wireless computer, then your clients will be very unhappy.
Wireless internet usage is proliferating. Not creating web sites
that can be displayed effectively across all platforms is
tantamount to career suicide.

If you are not familiar with Wireless Markup Language, I
recommend that you enroll in some courses at a local computer
programming institute, or purchase some tutorials online. The
syntax for the WML language is not too complicated, so if you
already have extensive web design experience, learning the
language should be relatively easy.

Jim Pretin is the owner of <a
href="http://www.forms4free.com">http://www.forms4free.com</a>, a
service that helps programmers make an HTML form

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