Creating WAP/WML Site/Page - the Easy way

WAP / WML

Getting Started :

Building WAP site is no Big Deal , just like HTML but some differences.

Finding A WML Host

Unfortunately WML cannot be run on all web hosts. For WML content to be run, a web host must make some changes to the configuration of their web server. If your host cannot do this for you, you can try WAPHosts.net. They can provide you with a server which will support WML.-- ( Most of the server nowadays provide WAP support ) or you like to try a free WAP host

Declaring A WML Document

When you are creating a WML document all you need is notepad or another text editor, just like for HTML. The first thing you should enter is:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml"><wml>

this tells the phone that it is interpreting a WML document and which WML standards it is using.

Cards

Instead of having pages, WAP sites have cards. These are what is displayed on the screen at one time, just like a page. More than one card can be inserted in each WML document. To declare a card, insert the following:

<card id="index" title="My WAP Site" newcontext="true">

This will make a card with the ID index (used for linking) and will display the text:

My WAP Site

at the top of the screen.

Closing Tags

Unlike with HTML, it is extremely important to close WML tags. If you do not, a page will certainly not work. You must close both the <card> and <wml> tags:

</card>
</wml>

The Tag

Just like in HTML the tag is used to show where a paragraph begins and ends. Unlike HTML, though, all text on a WML page must be inside these tags. You are not allowed to nest these tags either. One important thing to remember about WML is that, unlike HTML where a page will still display even if there is bad code, a WAP phone will just reject a page if there is and code it doesn't understand.

As with HTML you use the tags as follows:


information

Aligning Text

Aligning text in WML is nearly exactly the same as in HTML, except you can't use the center tag. All aligning must be done using the following tags:

Center:


Right:


The Tag

In WML (as mentioned earlier) all tags must be closed. This causes problems when using old HTML tags (like ) which have no closing tag. To get around this, some tags have had a / put on the end e.g.

 

This, like in HTML will make a line break.

Text

In WML there is actually no font tag (as you can only display text in the phone's default font in black). To show text all you need to do is put it in between the and tags. Here is an example of a full 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="index" title="My WAP Site" newcontext="true">

Welcome to my new WAP site. You can view this on your mobile phone anywhere in the world! 
It is amazing!

</card>
</wml>

More Cards

As I explained in the second part of this tutorial, WAP sites have cards instead of pages. They are really the same as pages except they can all be written in one file. To add another card, all you need to do is put in another <card> tag with a different ID to the others. For example:

<card title="About Me" id="about">
information
</card>

would be added below the first card but before the </wml> tag.

Linking

There are three ways to link to another WAP site, file or card. Just like in HTML these can either be the full path to a file or a relative link.

To link to a WAP site you use the following:

<a href="http://www.sr-ultimate.com/wap/">Sr-ultimate</a>

in your text. To link to another file on your site you would use:

<a href="links.wml">My Links</a>

and to link to another card in the same page you use:

<a href="#about">About Me</a>

Images

Images in WML are inserted using the <img> tag, just like in HTML:

<img src="logo.wbmp" alt="Logo" />

Again, you can see that a / has been added at the end as the <img> tag has no closing tag. It is very important that you also include the alt text as it will be displayed while the image is being downloaded.

Example Site

Below is the sample WML code for a small WAP site. It has two cards, an image, and a link to an external site:

<?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="index" title="Sreejith`s World" newcontext="true">

Welcome to Sreejith`s new WAP site. You can view this on your mobile phone anywhere in the world! 
<img src="logo.wbmp" alt="Logo" />


Here are some links: 
<a href="#about">About Me</a> 
<a href="http://www.sr-ultimate.com/wap/">sr-ultimate</a>

</card>
<card id="about" title="About Me">
Here is some information about me. You can't write too much in here, though as there is not much space 
You can scroll down the screen, of course.


<a href="#index">Back</a>

</card>
</wml>

WAP Stimulator

You should consider making your site suitable for all browsers currently available for use. Each browser will display your WAP site differently. Not all WML tags are supported with all browsers. If you do not test your website with all available browsers, it is very likely that your website will not work on all phones. When working with emulators, make sure you send your signal through a gateway to simulate actual phone connection. Below are links to the developer sites where you can download the most commonly used browsers.

WinWAP - (Software - $$ )

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