Compatibility

Hello, I am new to mobile and to this great forum.

I read as much of this forum as I could and, as suggested, I got my first books on WAP and WML in order to create my own WAP sites. But even this prove to be difficult since here in the US there doesn't seem to be that many specialized books (please recommend if possible).

While reading them and while researching for tutorials I came across the subject of compatibility (screens, resolutions, etc) for many different devices. Today, at a mobile conference in Miami a few speakers mentioned they had to overcome this problem by creating a database with all features representing over 6000 devices...

Needless to say, this discouraged me a great deal. I am used to the easy HTML pages that I upload in a blink and can be seen by 90% or more of users without any tweak.

How in the hell can anyone adapt a little "Hello World" message or a page containing a picture of my cat to be seen on 6000 different devices, each with different requirements? I can't even imagine what it would be to have to handle videoclips...

I am actually asking for some expert advice. Perhaps someone here has dealt with this successfully. I honestly do not know where to begin. One of the speakers mentioned that approximately 3 new devices are added to the market every week. Is part of this game to keep up with the new specs for each device?

Are there any tools/software programs that can help a webmaster with this ordeal? And how does all this translate when creating a wml page? Is there a need for a specific code that can identify where the request is coming from? Would this be a script running at the root of Apache or simply snippet on a wml page?

Hi there,

First of all welcome along to Dev Shed's WAP Forums, we hope you enjoy your stay here and hope that people help you out with any queries you may have.

Don't be put off by there being around 6,000 devices, yes each has differences in spec but the big issue is really firmware. A Nokia 7250i in the UK will not do videoclips yet elsewhere it may......

There is a solution to this and it's called the WURFL and is developed by a couple of guys who work over at Open Wave with the support of the online user's who can then contribute device specs.

The WURLF is an XML file with the data for over 5,000 devices and has info on screensize, colours, digital rights management support and a hell of a lot more.

Videoclips are infact a lot easier than you would think.......... and please no more pictures of cats (or bloated babies) on the internet......

On the WURFL site there is a Java tool called WALL - this rocks and will allow you to generate a HELLO WORLD page which renders with the specifics of each handset. WALL mainly runs on Jakarta Tomcat though through JSPs but there is a fantastic tool in PHP that will let you use the WALL tags. It's called WALL4PHP .

WALL is the language to write for mobile in. WURLF is the powerhouse of data behind it. If you work with both you will get great results.

WALL is an abstraction library, example <wall:b>this is bold on devices that support bold</wall:b> so you can write in one markup language and have that render either WML, XHTML-MP of CHTML to the end user. Whichever is the prefered markup of the device.

Yes, there are flaws in the WURFL, it might not be 100% correct but it is the quickest and easiest way I know of to render within the guidelines of each phone.

You'll get even better results if you also use the variables the handset will send your server, like HTTP_ACCEPT for example will contain an array of the formats the devie supports. If you marry that with WALL and WURFL you should be able to build very powerful mobile applications.

Hope this helps.

Best of luck with it.

Andrew, your answer was more than what I was expecting, thank you so much. I will check on your suggestions.