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.