Learning WML - by Michael Wright

Now you have to learn WML or HDML to create a WAP site. HDML stands for Handheld Device Mark-up Language and WML for Wireless Mark-up Language. We will be learning WML because of its logic and popularity. WML is based on XML and although similar in syntax to HTML, is much more like XML. Just like XML you will find WML a lot stricter than HTML. 

One of the problems that I had was that you must have the exact parameters within the tags or you will provoke a compilation error. To learn more about WML goto http://www.wirelessdevnet.com/training/wap/wml.htm,which will show you the basics of WML and how to write some simple sites. 

If you have viewed the information at the url above then you will already know this but a WML file is made up of cards that make up a deck. The one thing you must remember is that even though you can have many different cards or WAP pages to a file you must make sure you do not have too many or a compilation error will be produced from the file being too big. After you have set-up cards you need to add content to each of them.

You may find that you can only add the <IMG> tag by having SRC and ALT within the parameters and don’t forget the / before the end >. The <INPUT> tag should contain these parameters to work TYPE, NAME, FORMAT and a / before the end >. Although I am writing in capitals for the examples here, write in lowercase within the WML tags and always close tags e.g. <P> closed with </P>.

WAP sites cannot be viewed within normal browsers so in order to test your WML files you must use a WAP emulator unless you have a WAP phone. You can download a UP.browser that will emulate most popular WAP mobile phones fromhttp://www.phone.com/products/upsdk.html