Making a website WAP compatible

Where to start

[Visit Thailand]

What is the best and preferably easiest and fastest way to make a website WAP compatible?

Are there any HTML to WML converters etc?

Any advice from people who have travelled down the .wml road?

[barticula]

There are two parts to your question. From a coding perspective, you just need to strip the HTML down to the bare essentials - simple layouts, no nested tables, no JavaScript, etc. There are several sites on the topic of wireless style and usability guidelines.

From a content delivery perspective, it depends on what you want to do and where you are. Here in the U.S., site operators may have to pay wireless services to have their content available. If you're delivering content to PDAs, it may not matter, but you can make PDA-specific applications that users can download and run.

I only know of tools that can convert material for PDAs. Even if a tool was available for converting HTML to WML (which is what WAP-enabled devices use), I don't know if I'd trust it. You may want to take your content and start over from scratch because you'd be able to tailor it and cut the fat for the wireless users.

[Visit Thailand]

Thanks for the tips barticula. I am very new to WAP etc do you know if WAP is moving in the direction of html compatability or where is it going?

It would be silly to create an existing site for WAP if eventually PDA's and mobiles can read html etc.

I obviously have a lot of research to do on this.

[bakedjake]

VT:

Google (as I'm sure you are aware) has an HTML to WML converter, but I find it woefully inadequate, especially for sites that contain forms, etc.

I'm with barticula; If you're interested in WML, I wouldn't trust an HTML to WML converter. WML is sort of like HTML/CSS in that the different browsers all have their different nuances. You'll have to test for all of the major platforms when using WML.

On the bright side, testing shouldn't be too bad. You won't have to go out and buy all of the devices you want to test for. Most of the major phone manufacturers have phone development software that contains an emulator of the phone that you can use to try and render pages.

[b]Added:[/b] Here's a place to start for simulators:

http://developer.phone.com/download/index.html

I have an iDEN one too, but you can only get that after signing up for Motorola's developer program.

[waitman]

FYI

I spent a lot of time fiddling with wml and making sites wap accessible a few years ago.

I never found a (free) converter that was adequate.

One thing to note, the following seems true to me: if you are accessing a site from a cell phone, you are probably stuck going through a proprietary gateway. I have tried fiddling around with my phones trying to force my gateway... might be possible but i had no luck. However, the usual phone gateways (or possibly even the phones themselves) can handle html, or they convert the html (not 100% certain).

I guess my two cents is this: I haven't found it worthwhile to try to provide wap service because either most normally used and modern devices support html, or your html will get converted by a gateway anyhow.

Take care,