XHTML Basic

XHTML is a derivative of XML and HTML. HTML has long been the standard for development of Web sites. With the creation of XML and its use as a foundation for portable documents, language definitions began to appear. XHMTL is one of those important document types. XHMTL documents can be used to create WML documents and is becoming a standard replacement for HTML.

Mobile Application Development I

n the previous chapter on mobile application development, we developed an order placement system (OPS) using Microsoft Embedded Visual Basic (EVB). Although EVB provides developers with the basic tools for developing mobile applications, it has many limitations. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 addresses these limitations by including tools for developing smart device applications. Using these tools, developers can create mobile applications for PocketPCs or other Windows CE devices with relative ease and flexibility. Similar to EVB, Visual Studio .NET uses a form-based approach to build applications and provides developers with WYSIWYG tools for user interface development, but as you will find in this chapter, it not only provides many new tools to enrich the application but also simplifies many tasks that are cumbersome in EVB (i.e., creating menus and interacting with databases). Furthermore, Visual Studio .NET allows developers to use a number of different programming languages including Visual Basic and C# to develop applications so that developers can leverage their existing programming skill sets. To illustrate how Visual Studio .NET can be deployed to develop mobile applications, we will develop an upgraded version of the OPS in this chapter. In order to provide a better comparison between Visual Studio .NET and EVB, we will use Visual Basic as the programming language in this project.

Dynamic Wireless Application Development II

In the previous chapter, we created an m-business application using ColdFusion. Besides ColdFusion, many other development tools can be used to develop m-business applications. Visual Studio .NET, an integrated development environment by Microsoft, has become an increasingly popular corporate applicationdevelopment tool due to its ease of use and support for a wide range of programming languages. Besides traditional Windows and Web applications, Visual Studio .NET also allows developers to build mobile and wireless applications with relative ease. The focus of this chapter is to discuss the tools and techniques for developing wireless applications using Visual Studio .NET. Wireless applications are developed using the ASP .NET Mobile Web Application template. The template provides developers with WYSIWYG tools for creating user interfaces for various mobile devices. These tools work seamlessly with ASP.NET, which uses a form-based approach to build server-side applications for processing user requests and interacting with databases. In this chapter, we will develop a business-to-consumter wireless application using Visual Studio .NET.

Dynamic Wireless Application Development I

A wireless application is designed to function when the device is connected to networks (e.g., the Internet) or other devices wirelessly. An example of such an application is a directory service, such as Indigo, found on handsets and PDAs with wireless Web services. These applications allow users to access and even manipulate data on the move. More and more organizations are beginning to develop wireless applications for their employees so they can access critical corporate data whenever and wherever the service is available. The primary advantage of a wireless application over a mobile application is that the user can have access to the most up-to-date information; therefore, if the information in an organization frequently changes, a wireless application is more appropriate in this situation.

Wireless Markup Language (WML)

Associated with the Wireless Application Protocol is a markup language, similar in concept to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) used to develop Web pages. This language, Wireless Markup Language (WML), produces an XML document. In order to develop WML documents which can be used successfully for user input-output it is necessary that you understand both structure and syntax. This chapter provides a thorough foundation in WML. That foundation supports work in following chapters.

Mobile Application Development I

Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools were designed to develop applications that run on Windows CE devices (e.g., Pocket PC and Handheld PC 2000). It is a free software product that can be downloaded at the www.microsoft.com Web site. Two programming languages are supported by Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools: Embedded Visual Basic (eVB) and Embedded Visual C++ (eVC). These two programming languages are versions of Visual Basic and Visual C++ with limited capabilities, respectively. Therefore, developers with Visual Basic or Visual C++ experience can easily leverage their existing expertise to develop mobile or wireless applications. Since many developers are familiar with Visual Basic, we will explore the techniques of using eVB to develop applications for wireless devices in this chapter.

WMLScriptStandard Libraries

In an effort to aid developers in the creation of WML and WMLScript applications a set of libraries, the WMLScript Standard Libraries, were developed. These libraries provide you with pretested, standardized functions aimed at easing the process of developing and testing WML-based applications. This chapter examines the primary functions in each of the different libraries. Elementary examples illustrate how the individual functions operate and how to call then from a WML document.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)

In this chapter, you are introduced to the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which was designed to support the development of applications over cellular networks in order to provide communication and data services for a variety of users. In addition to the protocol we will go through the process of installing both the Nokia Mobile Internet Toolkit, 4.0, and the Openwave SDK 6.2.2. These toolkits are used through out the chapter of this book where WML, WMLScript, WMLScript Standard Libraries, and XHTML Basic are discussed.

WMLScript

WMLScripts improve the use of WML documents through their ability to support decision-making, arithmetic operations, iteration, and parameter passing. Furthermore, since they are executed on the server, they aid in memory management. Without any additional language support, one can still write reasonably complex wireless mobile Internet applications by using WML documents and WMLScript functions. However, to reduce the amount of work required to create useful applications, a set of standard libraries has been developed that are easily integrated into your WMLScript functions. These standard libraries are discussed in depth in Chapter V.

Introduction to M-Business Applications

Leung and Antypas (2001) defined mobile business (m-business) as both “content delivery (notification and reporting) and transactions (purchasing and data entry) on mobile devices”. Another term often used for m-business is “wireless e-commerce”, as such business activities often leverage wireless and Internet technologies.m-business will grow to $200 billion worldwide by 2004, and the number of U.S. m-business users will grow to 29 million (Kelly, 2001).