WML (see also HDML) is the Wireless Markup Language designated by WAP to be used to send messages to and from WAP supporting wireless products. So your smart phone might use WML over WAP, say. Fear it.

It is an application of XML, btw.

WML is an attempt to bring the basics of HTML to mobile phones by using WAP.

WML is based around the concept of a deck of cards as opposed to flat files. One WML page will usually contain many cards.

An example of a WML deck :


<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml">
<wml>
  <card id="card_a" title="Card A">
    <p><b>Card A</b></p>
    <p>Link to <a href="#card_b">Card B</a></p>
  </card>
  <card id="card_b" title="Card B">
    <p><b>Card B</b></p>
    <p>Link to <a href="#card_a">Card A</a></p>
  </card>
</wml>

WML provides only the most basic formatting tags since the pages must be capable of being rendered on very low-resolution screens e.g. 16x2 character phone screens.

When sent to mobile devices WML code is compiled into bytecode. This has the effect of reducing the size of the code by 2 or 3 times. This is especially good since many small WAP devices can only handle WML decks of around 1500 bytes.

WML has an associated scripting language WMLScript.

WML can also be Website Meta Language an IMHO great language for generation of a set of static pages. Features wonderful features like embedding Perl, and generating multiple HTML files from the one WML file. See Website Meta Language.

And don't you just hate people choosing conflicting acronyms? Especially (as in this case) when the field they are used in is similar. Untold amounts of confusion...

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.