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 "It’s Enough To Make Wappy Sing Like A Canary!"
Though we know WAP technologies have been out for quite some time now, it really hasn’t been until recently that it’s become more common among the web-dev community. As its functionality has grown, so has the WML language. So, to help give you a jump-start, here’s a handy list of some of the most common WML tags.
Click for a few WML tags for reference
Armed with this information, you’re well on your way to communicating with people through their wireless devices!
 Cool KROW Clue
Of course, it’s always good to know your fundamentals. But, there are all sorts of great tools out there which will create WML cards for you. And best of all, many are in WYSIWYG environments! We’ll cover these in our next article!
 "Then and Now, Still Worth 1000 Words"
Thanks to the creative minds of the "design community", you just know there would have been a push for graphics on wireless devices somewhere along the line! Though, due to WAP’s file size allowances, images are still not what we’d like them to be. Most wireless devices are able to see graphics embedded into cards through the proper tags in WML documents. The graphic format for this is: Wireless Bitmap (WBMP). It’s a simple 1-bit black and white (uncompressed) image format. A sample line of WML code for getting an image into a WML file would look like this:
<img src="coolhorse.wbmp" alt="a cool horse"/>
So, if we put our image together with our previous template, we’d come up with a cell phone screen that looks like:
Our cool horse has gone wireless!
Not to be outdone by the flat coding community, the wireless "design" community also has some great software tools out there which will help you create WBMPs for your WML applications (some of them will even convert your standard jpeg and bmp files!) We’ll learn more about these cool tools in our next article too!
 "Big Surprises Do Come In Little Packages!"
As we briefly mentioned earlier, there’s an impressive list of applications currently in use through WAP. However, what warrants further investigation, is those applications which are still in their infancy and still being tested. Examples of these are:
- Global tracking and VPNs through Sats (believable)
- Color video to cell (unbelievable.......but true!)
Now, before you go shaking your head and saying "Yeah, right!", let’s take a few things into account. First off, it’s already a known fact that wireless devices (especially cell phones) are more widely used in Europe, than the U.S. Logically, since this market does exist, it only make sense that much of these new applications being tested are done overseas, and thereby are not as well known to those of us in the U.S. Also, as wireless technologies, as well as bandwidth continue to grow, this opens new opportunities to push larger files through to wireless devices. So, in a word, "yes", these types of applications are either here now, or are right around the corner. Keep your eyes peeled, and you’ll see these functionalities popping up everywhere!
Until our next article, do a little research on the WAP industry yourself, and you might be surprised at what all awaits you! We’ve listed some great resources to help you in your search:
www.wapforum.org
www.wapholesun.com
www.wirelessinanutshell.com
www.wap.com
Having covered a lot of great information in a short time here, we’ve learned some basic information about WAP and how it works, WML and how to make it work. And by now, you should have a lot more confidence in your opportunities to develop in WML. There are of course, still a number of things about WAP and WML we’ll get into more, in our later articles. So, until next time, HAPPY WAPPING!
-The KROW
Contributing Writer
club.coolmaps.com
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