Programming Applications with the Wireless Application Protocol: The Complete Developer's Guide [Hardcover]

Philip Rowe (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471327549 | ISBN-13: 978-0471327547 | Publication Date: December 8, 1999

The authoritative programming guide to the WAP standard from the creators of this breakthrough technology

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the key force turning mass market wireless phones into Internet companions. These lightweight, inexpensive smart phones are well equipped for high-quality voice communication, modest-bandwidth (9-14 Kbps) data communication, seamless Internet connectivity, and access to Internet services via built-in WAP microbrowsers. Written with the creators of WAP, this book/CD-ROM package will guide you through the process of creating software for WAP-enabled cell phones and handheld devices.

Steve Mann presents practical tools, code snippets, and complete applications that will help you best utilize WAP. He introduces you to the Wireless Markup Language (WML) that you'll be able to use to create WAP applications. And you'll learn about the key features of WMLScript, including the lightweight procedural capabilities and function libraries it adds to WML. Mann also:
* Takes you step by step through the process of creating a real-world
WAP application
* Describes techniques for optimizing WAP applications
* Shows how to create more sophisticated and interesting applications using graphics
* Discusses the issues you'll need
* in order to build WAP applications that will work around the world
* Explains some of the advanced extensions to WAP
* Suggests future directions in which WAP may evolve

The CD-ROM includes:
* All the source code from the book
* A searchable version of the
* unabridged WAP standard
* The latest release of Phone.com's WAP Software Developer's Kit, containing the tools and documentation required to build real-world WAP applications

Phone.com is a leading provider of WAP software and SDKs to developers, wireless carriers, and phone manufacturers. Phone.com cofounded the WAP Forum in 1997 and chaired the WAP Forum's first Board of Directors. Phone.com's software architects, who contributed to this book, chair WAP's technical specification committees. For more information about Phone.com and the Wireless Application Protocol, please visit www.phone.com

For more information about the Wireless Application Standard,please refer to the Official Wireless Application Protocol: The Complete Standard with Searchable CD-ROM published by John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-32755-7 at www.wiley.com/compbooks/WAP

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The WAP just left the gate, but it's already delivering great Internet content to users of mobile phones and other wireless devices. Programming Applications with the Wireless Application Protocol is the first book to explain how to develop WAP-aware programs, and it does a super job with both the client and server sides of the transaction.

Because the applications developers reading this book largely won't know much about WAP's particulars, author Steve Mann opens with an intelligent explanation of how WAP integrates HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) with the wireless network. He then documents all wireless markup language (WML) elements and shows how to bring WML cards and decks to life with WMLScript. He documents the scripting language's syntax fully, and steps through the construction of a simple WML/WMLScript game that teaches some lessons.

Programmers itching to get to work on the server side will appreciate Mann's dissection of WorldFAQ, a content server that responds to client-side queries from WAP devices. Implemented as a Java servlet, WorldFAQ looks up requested values in a comma-delimited text file. The author assumes you know a fair amount about Java and its servlet classes, but he's careful to explain the lookup logic and a lot of the HTTP details. Sections on caching, graphics, and internationalization also use Java in examples. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), versions 1.0 and 1.1, and its cast of supporting technologies, especially Wireless Markup Language (WML) and WMLScript. There's material on the inner workings of a WML content server, graphics, and internationalization techniques.

Review

"...is the first book to explain how to develop WAP programs, and should simply and quickly get you WAP-wise" (Internet Works, October 2000)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (December 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471327549
• ISBN-13: 978-0471327547
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,166,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Potentially Useful, but Flawed, March 21, 2000

By 

T. Bridgman "mrtom2000" (Wappingers Falls, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Programming Applications with the Wireless Application Protocol: The Complete Developer's Guide (Hardcover)

This had potential to be a useful book, but it is undermined by several serious flaws. First, and perhaps least likely to be noticed, is that it is heavily biased towards the WAP implementation of a single company. While the particular implementation used is not a bad one, the book fails to stress that there are many areas where implementations can differ. A developer relying only on the advice in this book will be in for a rude shock when browsers from other companies are tried.

Secondly, others have commented on the formatting, but the book's lack of organization, unhelpful syntax summaries (including the cryptic "content abbreviations") and the completely inadequate index all add up to a book that is unusable as a reference.

Finally, the book contains far more errors and misleading statements than is acceptable. An exhaustive list would take be far too long to post (and take more time to compile than I care to invest), but just to demonstrate that this is not an empty complaint, let's look at what leaps to the eye between pages 30 and 36. Despite what you read here:

- A nonbreaking space is not a space that can't be removed, it is a space that can't be used as a line break.

- A soft hyphen is not required to be displayed if it falls at the end of a line; user agents can choose to ignore it entirely.

- White space can, in fact, appear between the attribute name, equals sign, and value.

- The quotation marks example has an obvious editing error that means the two paragraphs are not equivalent.

- A WML deck is not conceptually the same as an HTML page; it has no HTML counterpart.

- A WML card does not have to be a SINGLE unit of user interaction, as user agents can render a card as multiple units.

- The XML declaration is invalid.

- A deck can, if needed, possess id and class attributes.

- The discussion of meta information is misleading and promises more than is required by the WML specification.

- The newcontext attribute does not require the device be reset to a known state.

- The card title is not necessarily the default bookmark title, although some user agents may use it as such.

- The statement that visible content must be enclosed in a

element is not completely true.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "How-To" Guide to WAP, January 13, 2000

By 

Rod Montrose (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Programming Applications with the Wireless Application Protocol: The Complete Developer's Guide (Hardcover)

As a developer of WAP applications, I'm glad to finally see a practical guide on how to build WAP applications. The book covers WML, WMLScript and constructing a Java server for WAP (all with worked out examples). It describes WAP specific technology (graphics, caching, internationalization) and future directions in WAP. The book reflects the author's hands on background as he mentions items to watch out for and how to debug a WAP application. The CD-ROM contains all the examples from the book and phone.com's beta 4.0 SDK. The author is closely aligned with phone.com and the book reflects their viewpoint on WAP and capabilities of their WAP gateway, but it doesn't interfere with the content of the book. The only item to note about the book is that it is based on the capabilities of the phone.com version 4 browser while most of the WAP capable devices currently on the market use the phone.com version 3.x browser, which doesn't fully support WML 1.1 (no WML Script, for example). This book is a "must-have" for every WAP developer!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to write a bad book, May 26, 2000

By 

D. Grinberg (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Programming Applications with the Wireless Application Protocol: The Complete Developer's Guide (Hardcover)

Save your money. Instead of buying the book, download the UP.SDK 4.0 from phone.com, or the Nokia WAP Toolkit 1.3 from nokia.com, or the Mobile ADK 1.1 from Motorola.com. I'm sure you'll find another WAP SDK at ericsson.com. Read through the various documents and cross-reference the online help. If you buy this book you'll have to do that anyway.

This book is not a tutorial, and it`s certainly not a reference book. It neglects to explain key fundamental concepts, leaving the reader wondering how the pieces tie together. It rushes through WML and WMLS syntax like a bat out of hell and then presents the reader with a "real world application" - a really short chapter dealing with writing a Java Servlet to read a text file.