There are a lot of new terms and expressions, and there is a glossary just below. Note that
with the amount of terms and expressions new to the WAP environment, the task of writing
them all down is phenomenal. Links and more explanations are on the way. Hell, I might even get time
to sort it alphabetically! Please be patient :-)
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DTD
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Document Type Definition. (#NOK) The definition states which elements can be nested within others. A DTD defines that
the names and contents of all elements that are permissible in a certain document, how often an element
may appear, the order in which the elements must appear, whether the start or end tag may be omitted,
the contents of all elements, that is, the names of the other generic identifiers that are allowed to
appear inside them, the attributes and their default values and the names of the reference symbols
that may be used.
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Element
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An element specify the markup and structural information in a WML deck. Some elements contain a start and end tag
such as the <p> and </p> tag, others are single elements such as the <br/> tag.
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HDML
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Handheld Markup Language
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PDA
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Personal Digital Assistant. Usually a hand-held device, such as the Palm Pilot.
WAP isn't just for cellular phones.
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SGML
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Standardised Generalised Markup Language.
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UA
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User Agent. Software that interprets WML, WMLScript, WTAI and other forms of code.
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W3C
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World Wide Web Consortium.
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WAE
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Wireless Application Environment. (#NOK) The Wireless Application Environment specifies a general-purpose
application environment based fundamentally on World Wide Web technologies and philosophies. WAE specifies
an environment that allows operators and service providers to build applications and services that
can reach a wide variety of different platforms. WAE is part of the Wireless Application Protocol.
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WAP Server
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A frequently misused term. A WAP server by itself is really nothing more than an HTTP
server - i.e. a web server. In order to confuse everyone, Nokia has a product which they
call a WAP server which is a WAP gateway and an HTTP server all in one. This is actually
a content providing server and a gateway. The gateway takes care of the gateway stuff, and
the web server provides the contents.
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WAP Gateway
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A WAP gateway is a two-way device (as any gateway). Looking at if from the WAP device's side, since
a WAP device can only understand WML in its tokenized/compiled/binary format, the function of the
WAP gateway is to convert content into this format. Looking at it from the HTTP server's side,
the WAP gateway can provide additional information about the WAP device through the HTTP headers,
for instance the subscriber number of a WAP capable cellular phone, its cell id and even things
like location information (whenever that becomes available).
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WML Card
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A single WML block of navigation and user interface in a WML deck. A WML card must exist inside a WML deck
containing one or more cards. WML decks are XML documents.
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WML Deck
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A collection of WML cards. The whole deck is loaded when the browser requests a URL, and access to
individual cards in the deck can be specified in the URL.
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WMLScript
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Scripting language for WAP devices. Based on JavaScript, but less powerful.
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WSP
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Wireless Session Protocol. (#NOK) The Wireless Session Protocol provides the upper-level application layer
of WAP with a consistent interface for two session services. The first is connection-mode service
that operates above a transaction layer protocol, and the second is a connectionless service that
operates above a secure or non-secure datagram transport service.
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WTP
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Wireless Transaction Protocol
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WTLS
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Wireless Transport Layer Security. The "equivalent" to SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) widely used in the HTML world - although not identical in functionality.
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WDP
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Wireless Datagram Protocol
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XML
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Extensible Markup Language. W3C's standard for Internet Markup Languages. WML is one of these languages.
XML is a subset of SGML.
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