[thelist] Re: What's the outlook

[Paul Bennett]

Ryan Tames wrote

<snip>

>I cannot figure out what type of multimedia I should develop.
>
wap 2.0 devices will support xhtml and wcss, and will essentially be 
optimized versions of exiting pages, rather than wml specific pages. 
"Interactive mulitmedia" on handhelds at the moment means (alomost 
exclusively) Java (downloadable software), and lots of it. May want to 
start there. I imagine we will see Flash for wap in the near future as 
well, with (initially) a cut-down feature set, but the same basic premise.

>>What
>>kind of content is needed for a small device and how to do you create
>>it? I think you need an emulator, am I right? On MacOSX where do I get
>>an emulator (and do I need fink installed?) And, is developing
>>expertise in XHTML/CSS and semantically correct code a path to success
>>in this area? I mean, do these devices depend on it?
>>    
>>
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>No, not yet. The newer versions of the handhelds support XHTML.
>
>The current set of handhelds, are still WML/WAP technologies,
>WML is easy to learn, 
>
It needs to be stated here that it is quirky, (especially for 
navigation), sometimes device specific (ah, remember those browser wars? 
- well they are very much in force in the wap device world) and devices 
are unforgiving with syntax errors - in my experience wap 1.x combined 
with server-side scripting can be a PITA to debug

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