Working on a website for my company, I discovered the need for wireless access to my email,
stocks and such. Not wanting to pay someone else to give me
this information, I decided to develop a wireless site. The information to do this is
available on the internet, but it is scattered and hard to come across. I needed
the ability to run php scripts, access databases, and other functions that I needed PHP to
do for me. This article covers the basics of wml, how to set up your apache server,
and php. Covering the basics allows you to set up this environment and then learn the rest
on your own.
stocks and such. Not wanting to pay someone else to give me
this information, I decided to develop a wireless site. The information to do this is
available on the internet, but it is scattered and hard to come across. I needed
the ability to run php scripts, access databases, and other functions that I needed PHP to
do for me. This article covers the basics of wml, how to set up your apache server,
and php. Covering the basics allows you to set up this environment and then learn the rest
on your own.
Requirements
You will need a little experience with the Apache Web Server, Php and html. As for system
requirements,
I am using apache 1.3.9, php3, and Red Hat Linux 6.0 for this demonstration. I don’t see
any problems with setting this up on a windows machine
running Apache, and PHP3 or PHP4.
requirements,
I am using apache 1.3.9, php3, and Red Hat Linux 6.0 for this demonstration. I don’t see
any problems with setting this up on a windows machine
running Apache, and PHP3 or PHP4.
In this article, I am going to walk you through the following areas; intro to wml,
setting up apache for wireless appications, and creating your first WML/PHP page.
Much of this information has been gathered from across the internet, and some I learned as
I tried to put together a working site.
setting up apache for wireless appications, and creating your first WML/PHP page.
Much of this information has been gathered from across the internet, and some I learned as
I tried to put together a working site.
Intro to WML
WML stands for Wireless Markup Language. WAP phone or similar devices are used to view
pages written in WML. WML is similar to XML based on it’s syntax and scrictness. Anybody
who has used html will have no problem learning WML. Many tags and attributes are the same,
but there are fewer tags. WML allows the programmer to use variables that allow you to
create dynamic content, although for this article we are going to use php as the dynamic
language.
pages written in WML. WML is similar to XML based on it’s syntax and scrictness. Anybody
who has used html will have no problem learning WML. Many tags and attributes are the same,
but there are fewer tags. WML allows the programmer to use variables that allow you to
create dynamic content, although for this article we are going to use php as the dynamic
language.
WML Basics
In WML you can use many sub-pages (called ‘cards’) in one WML page (called a ‘deck’).
Each WML card works like a web page and its content is displayed to the user. The following
will be our first example of a .wml page. On my server, I saved this file in
~/wireless/home.wml.
Each WML card works like a web page and its content is displayed to the user. The following
will be our first example of a .wml page. On my server, I saved this file in
~/wireless/home.wml.
<wml> <card id='home'> <p> My first Test page </p> </card> </wml>
Unlike HTML, if you do not close your tags, e.g. <wml> </wml> then, your script will
not compile correctly. The example above will create a simple test message on any wireless
device that says “My first Test page”.
not compile correctly. The example above will create a simple test message on any wireless
device that says “My first Test page”.
