Is WML and WMLScripts are used anymore ? I remember writing WML apps with classic-asp on server-side and we used interact with phone functionality from client using WMLScript and WTAI and do some cool things like, adding phone numbers to address book, trigger a call from WMLScript and much more. I still miss those things. I really want to know if modern web-browsers on phone have replaced WML with rich HTML support.
I also found that one of the most active WML and WAP forum Openwave Developers of our time is now discontinued which is no less than a shock to me. The forum also provided a nice WAP development SDK for testing WAP gateway simulation and WAP-pages on openwave browser simulator. All of these is now not seem to be available.
BEFORE DOWN VOTING EXPLAIN WHY, IF IS JUST BECAUSE OF IGNORANCE THEN STAY AWAY.
It is not dead yet.
It is used by some POS systems such as POSWEB, I have been developing on it for years in conjunction to ASP.NET to generate dynamic WML cards or downloadable catalogs, receipts, etc.
APPI Tecnologia's POSWEB Solution
Also another similar platforms do exist such as VERIWEB which are intended for the same purpose. Also I heard about similar ported WML/WMLScript being used in compact network enabled devices such as food / groceries dispensers, traveling card machines, etc.
This implementations supports mostly of the WML/WMLScript standard however it usually integrates additional functionality (depending on the target device), such as Smart Card processing, Simetric and assimetric cryptography, flat and indexed files creation and so on.
WML is still alive and in use many modern browsers doses not supporting WML for example andoid browsers like Firefox, Chrome but Opera still support WML for mobile and for web browsers also.
WML is more friendly to old phones but xHTML MP is the future in mobile WAP sites.
I would say, it's becoming less and less common out there in the wild.
You might find the odd device coming through that only does WML, but the effort to support those few might not be your goal in which case starting at html should be OK.
The users of those older phones typically already accept that their phone isn't the best and can't do as much as other phones.
Check out 0.facebook.com! There's been some resurgence of WML interest among some companies, mine included after Facebook Zero. The idea is that much of the technology still used in the developing world utilizes old technologies like WML, and coding up modern pages in WML will increase access in the developing world.
Related
Is there an in-browser, Flash-free method to view ebooks from Adobe Content Server?
We currently offer a library of c.50k specialist ebooks via a feature-rich "ereader" web-app (HTML5/JS based with various fallbacks down to IE7).
However, management want to be able to offer "downloadable" ebooks for "mobile devices". By this they mean a file that the user can download and read offline. Adobe Content Server is fine for this (if a little expensive, and a little hated by the users, but unfortunately it's becoming an industry standard...)
OK so if we adopt ACS, making downloadable-for-offline-reading a possibility, what are the options for online reading, assuming we want to use ACS for everything and not just offline? In other words ... is there an in-browser reader for Adobe Content Server?
Flash is not a possibility as a) a lot of the users us iPads (yes for online reading too) and b) a lot of the users have to use IE7 with no Flash installed (the NHS is a major customer).
I realise I might be asking for the impossible but I thought it would be worth hearing peoples' thoughts.
Please don't advise me not to use DRM, it's not my choice and I have already advised against using it. However we are contractually obliged by our suppliers to have "a DRM solution" for offline reading.
If there was a widely-available alternative solution to Adobe Content Server I'd be interested to hear about it. I have already integrated ACS once (version 3) and don't really look forward to repeat the experience...
There are a number of reader apps which support ACS, such as Sony Reader. Your readers can use those apps (after "sideloading" your books, a process which differs from reader to reader) to read the ACS books. I don't know of any browser-based reader, but it seems to me that the apps (which exist for all major platforms) should get the job done for you. These apps all keep local copies of books and work just fine offline.
I need to implement video conferencing in a ASP.Net application.
We have cases that contains 3 users. Per case we need to set up a Video Conferencing possibility.
Are there any services or libraries to use for this functionality?
EDIT:
TokBox was a good service to use, however I need a solution to maintain on own servers now. Are there existing services that let me do this?
See here: http://www.red5chat.com/.
By far your easiest solution at this point will be to embed Flash into your ASP.NET pages. You can use Red5 as your media server backend if you want a free and pretty good solution. (You can also pay for back-end media server solutions like Wowza or Flash Media Server.)
You can in theory do this with Silverlight (see http://silverlightvideochat.codeplex.com/), but it's not nearly as sophisticated as the Flash solutions, i.e., the video codec isn't nearly as good, there's no AEC, noise reduction, etc.
As for HTML5, Google has open-sourced WebRTC, and it's working its way through the standards process. But it's currently supported by ~0% of the browsers out there. (It was released into the Chrome dev channel in mid January: http://www.webrtc.org/blog/webrtcnowavailableinthechromedevchannel.)
But the short answer, again, is "Use Flash on the client and Red5 on the server."
EDIT: With a little bit more client-side coding and Adobe's RTMFP solution, you can create a peer-to-peer Flash-based solution that doesn't use a server. It won't scale to more than 2-4 users per "room", but it'll have very low latency, and won't require you to standup and support a server. See here to get started.
Also, the production channel of Google's Chrome now supports WebRTC (and so does Opera). You can see a demo of it here. Firefox also supports a version of it, but the two aren't yet compatible, though achieving interoperability is a high priority for both dev teams. Neither IE nor Safari has yet announced support.
Tokbox also has a reasonably simple API that will allow you to use WebRTC when it's available (it produces higher quality audio/video than Flash), and degrade to Flash when it's not. It's free for 1:1 sessions or for less than 25,000 group minutes per month.
I have no up to date mobile phone personally, and we don't have any in our team to allow us to test mobile versions of our ASP.Net websites.
We have now been asked to provide a mobile version of our website (which is a fairly busy site) but I have no means to check the mobile pages.
Any suggestions? Are there emulators or would it better to have the real thing?
It's always better to have the real thing, but if that's not an option, I have used a plugin for FireFox called "User Agent Switcher"
Another route you could go is to get the Android SDK and load up an emulator. It runs a full version of android, so you could open the browser from there (You could also change screen size/device type) - a little more heavy than the first solution, but potentially another route worth exploring.
You can use simulators/emulators - Android, iPhone etc.
Well Apple provide an iOS emulator, which you can download in the developers section of Apple's own website.
Outside of that, the only other testing environment I'm aware of is Ripple, which is a plugin for Chrome, designed to emulate a range of mobile devices. You can find that at: http://ripple.tinyhippos.com/.
As others have answered there is a lot of different tools to do the testing and that is all fine to a certain extent, for daily testing by developers and testers.
But with 15 years of testing behind me I would never let the site go untested with a few different real devices if the site is an important service - usually this can be done with "staff" phones at no cost if the cost is the problem. I would more or less say; can your company live with publishing a site out there and there might be a risk it won't work on some mobile platforms?
DeviceAnywhere is the tool that we have used a lot. It provides you access to numerous mobile devices using which you can test both apps and websites. They have placed several physical devices which you can see and operate remotely.
It is always better to test on real devices instead of emulators. During development phase, emulators are helpful but for final delivery it is best to test on real phones. Mobile web browsers may or may not support HTML,CSS,JS completely and their individual implementation could be different.
I have an existing web application developed in ASP.Net F/W 3.5 and a mobile version of the same needs to be created.
I would like to have some suggestions on:
Where should I start? Are there some links & sites that would give me more clarity on how to approach this requirement?
Are there any ASP.Net/IIS features or Visual Studio options that might ease this mobile version creation?
As there are RadControls & AJAX used throughout the application, what should I be careful about?
Will it require every form in the UI to be replaced and take the same time as the old UI creation?
What should I be considering from the performance/optimization point of view?
From a technical standpoint, needing to do a separate mobile version is pretty moot. At least in the developed world, modern smartphone browsers and mobile networks are good enough that they can handle most things one can throw at them. They are obviously a bit more sensitive to bloated scripts and images, but you should be optimizing that stuff anyhow.
The reason to handle mobile separately is use case -- people using mobile sites are after different things than folks using the full-boned versions. Mobile usage tends to be hurried and pointed at solving a very specific problem -- where is the bathroom? How much is this laptop on amazon? When does the show start? Whereas desktop users tend to be a bit more relaxed. Then layer on top a multi-touch style interface and you are looking at a whole different beast. To the point one almost thinks of doing mobile clients for your services not mobile websites per se.
I read about some mobile devices support improvements in the recent version of the telerik ajax controls (see more here). On top of that they had some additional enhancements in mind for the Q1 2011 release - I suppose that they will perform pretty decently on a mobile version of your web app, provided that they are not native mobile components though :)
just simplify your design, you can download samples from http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/5d9cd41a-7438-495a-9a46-7470e7ec8576/Nokia_Mobile_Web_Templates.html
Although asp.net has mobile web controls but they haven;t been updated quite a while. Besides there is no need for that.
If you target modern devices like iPhone or Android or WM7 it should be ok. But you should be carefull about MS ajax controls. They load quite large script sizes.
It will require a new design.
For a good experience I try to make site(s) as simple as possible and finger/touch friendly.
Try to keep page/image/script sizes small
First off, I know that this question begs the other question - should the latest web development standards be followed and further will they remain relevant?
That aside, I am focused on GUI development, usability, etc. Front-end web development that utilizes XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
I know there are many gurus and thought leaders out there but with my projects I simply do not always have time to follow them all and keep up with the latest development standards. However, this is obviously very important.
So how can I keep myself up to date on the latest web development standards while maintaining productivity? Are there any specific groups or organizations to monitor for this? Best practices that one might follow?
The web is moving forward at a tremendeous speed nowadays. The big
drivers are Google, Yahoo and Facebook. Look what they are using and
how they stay productive.
As of today you must know how AJAX works, if you have been in the
web business for say the last decade and not encountered AJAX yet, it
should at least become a "aha this is how it should have worked from
the beginning" feeling for you.
Secondly, browser compatibility. First there was Mosaic, then Netscape
ruled the world for several years. Then we had the browser war
and Netscape lost it,
mainly due to bad strategy.
For several years (2000-2005) IE was the first choice browser, where
NS 4.7 was the defacto standard for compatibility with Mac, Linux
etc. These years were terrible (Tables in tables in tabels and 1x1.gif
etc...) but then Firefox arrived, Opera gained attention and now we
have Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safarai as fully worthy alternatives
to IE.
To stay compatible with most browsers today, use JQuery
especially watch the full presentation "The DOM
is a mess" by John Resig the author of JQuery (google it yourself, I
wont promote any specific video site). But there are alternatives as well, Dojo, YUI etc.
On the server side, things are happening as well, especially in the
field of new exiting langauges. Check out commonjs,
node js, Couch DB
When millions of simultanous AJAX requests are flowing through the
network from millions of users of real-time interactive
web applications, you cant really work with gigabyte loaded weblogic or
websphere server solutions, you must use lightweight server systems
that scale easily to multiple servers.
One common factor in both client and server side is that JavaScript is gaining more and more acceptance. You should learn how to write good JavaScript code, although don't take Crockfords words too literally.
One nice thing with the web is that most knowledge is still as valid today as it was say 10 years ago, the difference is that the workflow today has become so much more productive.