COMFest WAP Talk

1
An Introduction to WAP Karli
Watson In-House Author, Wrox Press
Ltd. karliw_at_wrox.com http//p2p.wrox.com
2
Talk Overview

• What is WAP?
• What's so special about WAP?
• How do I create WAP enabled applications?
• What are WML and WMLScript?
• What about ASP?
• Where are developer tools available?
• What does the future hold is WAP here to stay?

3
What is WAP?
W A P
Wireless Application Protocol
4
So, What is WAP?!?
5
WAP Specification

• Available from www.wapforum.org

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WAP Architecture
WAP
OSI
Web
WAE
Application
HTTP
WSP
Presentation
NetBIOS
Session
TLS
WTP
TCP
WTLS
Transport
UDP
UDP
WDP
Network
IP
IP/SMS/GPRS
Data Link
Ethernet/PPP
PPP OTA Bearers
Physical
UTP
7
What's so special about WAP?

• (Limited) Internet / Intranet access from
  anywhere
• Location specific data possible (and "push")
• The "gadget factor"
• BUT
• Need to consider device limitations!

8
What are the Device Limitations?

• Small display area and very limited
• graphical capabilities
• Small bandwidth
• Small memory
• User input awkward
• CONSEQUENCE
• HTML? No chance!

9
How do I create WAP enabled applications?

• The WAP specification includes its own language
  for content WML
• WAP content (WML files) can be held on existing
  WEB servers

10
What is WML?
W M L
Wireless Markup Language
11
So, What is WML?!?

• A markup language for mobile user agents the
  HTML of the wireless world
• An XML application
• Optimised for content, unable to specify exact
  layout (can lead to interoperability problems)
• Has an associated scripting language WMLScript
• May be dynamically generated, via ASP etc.

12
WML Example
lt?xml version"1.0"?gt lt!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC
"-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http//www.wapforu
m.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml"gt ltwmlgt ltcard
id"First" title"First Card"gt ltpgt
lt!-- Card implementation --gt Let's
get mobile! lt/pgt lt/cardgt lt/wmlgt
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WMLScript Example

• extern function add()
• var num1 Lang.parseInt(WMLBrowser.getVar("A")
  )
• var num2 Lang.parseInt(WMLBrowser.getVar("B")
  )
• WMLBrowser.setVar("R", num1 num2)
• WMLBrowser.refresh()
• Accessed via URL, such as
• http//www.wrox.com/example2.wmlsadd()

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ASP Example
ltResponse.ContentType "text/vnd.wap.wml"gt lt?x
ml version"1.0"?gt lt!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC
"-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http//www.wapforu
m.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml"gt ltwmlgt ltcard
id"aspwml" title"ASPWML"gt ltpgt
Today's date is ltResponse.Write(now())gt
lt/pgt lt/cardgt lt/wmlgt
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Examples
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Serving WAP Applications

• Can be achieved from any existing web server
• Need to set up WAP MIME types
• Plain WML documents, .wmltext/vnd.wap.wml
• Compiled WML documents, .wmlcapplication/vnd.wap
  .wmlc
• WMLScripts, .wmlstext/vnd.wap.wmlscript
• Compiled WML Scripts, .wmlscapplication/vnd.wap.
  wmlscriptc
• Wireless Bitmap Images, .wbmpimage/vnd.wap.wbmp

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Tools Available

• Toolkits Emulators
• Nokia www.nokia.com
• Phone.com www.phone.com
• Ericsson www.ericsson.com
• Other
• WinWap www.winwap.com
• Gelon www.gelon.net
• WAP-FAQ allnetdevices.com/faq/

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Is WAP Here to Stay?

• Much media coverage has said that WAP is a
  passing fad, not very good, and will disappear
  soon
• Media coverage is missing the following points
• WAP is not "the Internet in your pocket"
• WAP is not just WML
• WAP is here to stay, WML is likely to evolve or
  be replaced (possibly by XHTML?)
• Alternatives - such as the Japanese iMode system
  - do exist, but WAP looks the most feasible at
  the moment

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The Future

• Higher bandwidth
• Better processing power (possibly)
• Location dependence (GPS?)
• "Always on"
• Holographic displays projecting huge WAP pages
  360 degrees around us, with thought directed
  navigation and full sensory immersion smell
  that book before you buy it!

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Where to go from here?

• Professional WAP Programming (ISBN 1861004044)
• Beginning WAP Programming with WML and WMLScript
  (ISBN 1861004583)
• P2P Lists p2p.wrox.com
• wrox_wap - covers all WAP issues
• wrox_wml - WML specific discussion

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Questions? Karli Watson In-House Author,
Wrox Press Ltd. karliw_at_wrox.com http//p2p.wrox.co
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