General Technical Questions
WAP 2.0
MULTIMEDIA
RE: Audio Media Types
Question: When will audio media types be registered?
Answer: WAP Forum does not need to register any audio media types unless it defines a unique one. To date this has not bee necessary and not foreseen. The use of standard audio types would be specified in any specifications requiring them.
The WINA registration process allows the WAP Forum and other people to register content types as needed with only minor WAP Forum involvement. Questions regarding registration can be sent to Meiy Palaniappan, who is responsible for running the WINA process.
RE: Color
Question: Which tags should be used in order to utilize color in WAP 1.2.1?
Answer: There is no specific markup support for color in WAP V1.2.1. The exception is images where the specifications require support for the WBMP where images are supported but beyond this the manufacturers can support which types they like, and if the device has a color display the support for color images results. Please refer to WAP 2.0 specifications for color support.
RE: Connecting PPG to an MMS server
Question: Is it possible to establish one connection point between an MMS server and a PPG with the Session Initiation Application (SIA) in the WAP Client?
Answer: Since this scenario is not directly addressed by the specifications, there are different possibilities for the client and the server.
The client implementation might be such that the push and MMS user agents cannot share the same WSP session and the client is unable to support two. In that case, the previous session will need to be disconnected and a new one will need to begin.
The server might have a similar restriction. Various clients manage sessions will not be controllable and you should be prepared to support clients that actually reuse the session. However, it is not totally implausible that such a restrictive 'feature' would exist.
In order to avoid any problems, a new session should always be established when switching the used service. However, disconnecting the old one by sending a Disconnect PDU is not required, since the WSP server has to be able to discard unused sessions. On the other hand, using WTP concatenation would make sending the Disconnect quite cheap, since it would be transported in the same datagram as the Connect for the new session. Even cheaper would be using the same peer address quadruplet for the new session, since this will automatically cause the old one to be discarded.
The situation will be different, if the client is able to maintain several sessions in parallel. In that case you could just keep on using one session for MMS, and create new sessions for push as directed by the session initiation requests.
RE: Device Certification for MMS
Question: Did the WAP Forum release device certification for MMS application layer?
Answer: WAP V2.0 is the first release to include MMS and a device certification program has not been launched for this release yet. When a certification program is released the ICS editor will include all specifications covered by the certification program
RE: Image Visualization
Question: Is image visualization a mandatory WAP requirement? If so, is it a mandatory requirement to support at least WBMP format or "all" the image formats?
Answer: A WAP Browser MAY or MAY NOT support images, depending on the capabilities of the device. If a WAP Browser supports images it must support the WBMP image type. However the browser may also support other image formats and these are determined by the manufacturer and should be indicated through the use of the http accept headers. Also, a Browser MAY support images but choose not to just as a PC browser can opt for this. Therefore simply relying on the user agent type to determine whether you should sent and accepted image type is not really sufficient. Finally there is the use of UAPROF. If a device and supporting infrastructure (WAP Proxy etc) supports UAPROF this will give you, the content author and manager, the ability to still further tune your application to the capabilities and preferences of the device and user.
RE: Subject Definition
Question: Do the specifications define a maximum size for images sent over MMS?
Answer: There is no limit of message size (it doesn't matter whether the carried content is an image or not) in MMS spec. Even protocol under MMS application such as WSP, http doesn't have such limitation as transport. That kind of limit comes from implementation.
RE: MMS Images
Question: Which format of images can be sent over MMS?
Answer: Any format can be sent according to WAP MMS spec if it has an appropriate MIME type.
The actual format sent should be one supported by the device.
RE: MMS Relay
Question: Is there technical information about the functions that take place between the MMS Relay and:
- Legacy Wireless Messaging systems
- Internet - email server
- Other MMS systems
- MMS Server
Answer: At this time, there is no specification document for your requested area in WAP Forum.
RE: MMS functionality
Question: Is MMS functionality in the Gateway stack mandatory or optional?
Answer: There is no requirement to WAP Gateway or proxy to implement WAP MMS based on WAP-206 and WAP-209 specifications. Because WAP MMS is the application framework on the top of WAP stack (either 1.X or 2.0) WAP Gateway is supposed to pass all MMS PDU through between MMS Client and MMS Proxy-Relay server. MMS Proxy-Relay server is NOT the same entity as WAP gateway, and rather the origin server and the push initiator from stack's point of view. A clearer picture can be found in WAP-205, MMS Architecture Overview specification.
MMS functionality is an independent set of features, thus it's not mandatory in order to conform to WAP 2.0 conformance itself.
WAE
RE: wbmp Writer
Question: Is there are source code available for a real time wbmp writer?
Answer: It is believed that there are open source versions of wbmp writers on the Internet.
For reference the WBMP specifications for WAP version 1 (1.1, 1.2 and June 2000 Conformance release) can be found in the WAE specification. In WAP Version 2 the WBMP specification is in the WAEMT specifications.
WDP
RE: Sending Data to the wap-gateway
Question: How do you send data to the wap-gateway via a socket connection and the UDP-protocol?
Answer: When using CSD, WAP 1.x always runs ultimately over UDP. However, there are two different services: one that is reliable and another one that provides unreliable delivery. The latter is a bit simpler to implement, but the entity operating your WAP gateway may have disabled it.
RE: WAP Bearer
Question: Which WAP bearer allows a notebook to connect via handy to the service provider (wap-gateway)?
Answer: If the notebook believes that the handy is a modem, then it is circuit-switched data (CSD).
RE: WDP Number
Question: Does protocol WDP number the come out PDU? If not, they are numbered by which? In the event of loss, which protocol can manage this effect?
Answer: No, unless you are referring to fragmentation and re-assembly support with this. For instance, WDP over IP is standard UDP/IP with all the associated features. WDP is a pure datagram protocol, so recovery from packet loss has to be handled on a higher protocol layer. Either it is done by the transport protocol, which in the WAP 1.x stack is WTP, or by the application protocol using connectionless services.
WML
RE: Emulator Access
Question: How do you use the emulator to access wml content on a remote computer?
Answer: Virtually all emulators provide for both local content and requesting remote content. Local content can be accessed as local files, i.e. just like Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer for HTML files by opening the file from within the browser. Remote and local files can be fetched using HTTP from an HTTP Server on the machine identified by the URL. If using the file opening method index.wml or any other filename will need to be selected. If using the HTTP request index.wml etc may be the default for the request if the URI is not completely resolvable or overridden by the HTTP server. This depends on the HTTP server configuration. In order to access remote content
a) The emulator will need to be configured to request from target URLs via HTTP
b) The destination URL has an HTTP server
c) The destination HTTP server is appropriately configured for wml and other
WAP content types and any defaults set, e.g. index.wml for URLs that are not fully resolved.
RE: WML tags
Question: Are there any specific tags in WML grammar to support MMS?
Answer: There is no direct link between WML and MMS. WML is a mark up language and MMS is the messaging framework that enables you to send and receive rich content messages between mobile terminals. There is no WML tag that calls MMS functions due to the fact that it creates a potential security risk.
RE: WML DTD for WAP 1.2/1.2.1
Question: What is the correct doctype for WAP 1.2 and WAP 1.2.1? The URL in the 1.2 Spec suggests using: <!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.2//EN" http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.2.xml Unfortunately this document does not seem to exist. The URL http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd returned something looking as the WML .2 dtd.
Answer: The WML DTD form WML 1.2 is found at: http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml12.dtd. However, please note that this is not the DTD to be used together with the WAP 1.2.1 (June 2000) conformance release. That one is instead found at:
http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml13.dtd and belongs to the WML 1.3 specification. Note that links to all DTDs associated with each release are found at the respective web pages of the releases in question. Start at:
http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm and use the links on that page to get access to previous releases.
RE: WML 1.1
Question: In WML 1.1 DTD, why is the entity amp shown as &#38; and not as #38; ?
Answer: Section 7.1 of the WML1 specification discusses why ampersand is encoded this way. It is because ampers is an XML language and amp (&) and lt. (<) have special meaning and therefore have to be escaped.
RE: WML 1.3
Question: How do you use "PCDATA" (WML 1.3)? What is the meaning of <!ELEMENT a (PCDATA IbrIimg)*>"?
Answer: This question pertains to the definition of the DTD of WML V1.3. PCDATA is an SGML construct for document text. (please refer to HTML 4.01 for more info).
The line <!ELEMENT a (#PCDATA |br|img)*> in section 9.9 of the WML1.3 defines the short form of anchor (section 9.8) and the element <a> can have parameters of
i) br, i.e. the br element defined in 11.8.4,
ii) img, i.e. image element defined in 11.9,
iii) PCDATA, i.e. text associate with the anchor to define to the user its purpose, etc. For more information on the definition of XML DTDs in general, refer to the XML specification at http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006.pdf.
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RE: Mobile Device Support
Question: Which mobile devices support WML but not WML Script? Is it the case that all devices with Mobile browser 4.0 and higher support WML Script and the Browser versions below 4.0 DO NOT support WMLScript?
Answer: WAP Forum defines the minimum level of functionality for certified devices through a class conformance requirements document which is available on the web site for all versions currently certifiable. Support for WMLScript and WMLScript libraries specifications is required for all certified products. Therefore all certified devices will support WMLScript and WMLScript libraries, uncertified devices may or may not support WMLScript and WMLScript Libraries but should support them if they are meeting the intent to be interoperable. The WAP Forum does not keep a list of which devices do or do not have which feature, this is a product vendor matter. However there may be other sources of such information. Questions relating to Mobile Browser 4.0 should be addressed to the vendor.
RE: WML Tool Chain
Question: Is there a tool chain that can build WML documents that can be displayed on a simulated wireless device?
Answer: Most manufacturers of devices make SDKs for their devices that provide authoring environments and emulators for running the applications.
Some tooling suppliers also provide WAP support.
RE: Relationship of WML with JavaApplet
Question: Can WML run with JavaApplet or PHP? Did the WAP Forum declare a tag <applet> for WML in the DTD?
Answer: WAP Forum has made no statements in WML so far with regard to enabling JavaApplets.
RE: Sending info through WAP
Question: Can information be sent through WAP in HTML similar to <FORM ACTION=""METHOD=POST">? Is there a WML file with these tags?
Answer: WML V1 does not support <form>
Sending information can be achieved using <go> with the post or get method.
WML2 and XHTMLMP forming the markup languages of WAP 2.0 support the FORMS module of XHTML Modularization.
RE: Transportation of Client ID
Question: Is it possible to transport Client ID over WAP?
Answer: ClientID specification does not cover transport; the specification is intended only to define a format for a client identification, for use within the WAP environment. Any application will be defined in other specifications.
The only specification so far to specify a ClientID application is
WAP-183-PROVCONT-20010724-a, which you can download from the public area of the WAP Forum web site on the following URL http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm. This specification defines the content encoding of configuration parameters presented to the WAP client through the provisioning process.
Although this specification references the ClientID specification, this is an informative reference, and the content encoding defined in the PROVCONT specification actually makes no assumptions about the internal encoding of the client identification parameter.
WTA
RE: Implementation of WTAI Specification and PhoneBook suite.
Question: Is the full WTAI Spec implemented on existing mobile phones with the ability to use the PhoneBook suite of functions? Will they present any security issues (especially other WTAI commands that do things like initiate a call) Do the phones actually support them?
Answer: WTAI is available on some WAP devices. However, it is optional for all "data only" devices in WAP and mandated only for those requiring WTAI. Given that WTAI is optional, please refer to the manufacturers specifications and use the device identification to determine if the use of the WTAI by your application is appropriate for that device.
Phones with the up.browser support WTAI make call functionality - this covers most wap phones in the market. There are several web sites which list the wap features supported by various phones.
RE: Accessing Mobile Phone Address Books
Question: Is it possible for the WML script to access the address book of a mobile phone? If not, can WTLS perform this function?
Answer: WTLS is short for Wireless Transport Layer Security. It has nothing to do with WML or the phonebook. Please refer to the technical specifications found at http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm.
There are a couple of approaches to interact with the phonebook in the terminal. One approach would be to examine SyncML. Search engines will be able to provide a lot of information. Additional information about WAP and SyncML can also be found from the developer-areas that the different handset manufacturers provide.
Within the WAP standard itself the WTAI specification covers interaction with the phonebook in the terminal. The specification can be found at:
http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm.
Only some parts of the specification are implemented in a selection of devices from different handset manufacturers. Additional research is needed in order to find which functions are implemented.
RE: Browsing Content during a Voicecall
Question: According to WTAI specs initiating a wtai://wp/mc; 5551212 in my WML. is blocking and no WTA events are generated or delivered on the WAP device once the call is placed. Is it possible to either initiate another WTAI method like wtai://wp/sd (dtmf) while the above call is in progress? If so, how to envoke the wtai dtmf method? Is it through installing an event handler or a channel or by some other method? If this is not possible how can we send dtmf across the voice channel, without actually typing on the phone keypad.
Answer: When invoking the makecall function of WTAI, the WML deck in the browser environment after the call is set up, and the links in the visible deck may be used to send DTMF! Additional components are not required to be installed.
However, you can not continue browsing other content without ending the voicecall. This would require a class A terminal.
Misc.
RE: Calculating Time
Question:How do you develop a WAP application that calculates the time a particular WAP page employs to get to the phone from the moment of the page request? In other words, how do you estimate the speed of the network?
Answer: Write an application that returns a deck with an embedded action that fetches another deck. On the server, measure the elapsed time from sending the GET response to the receipt of the next GET request. This will include the delay of the gateway, WAP device, etc. An alternative is to "ping" the WAP device if the network/firewalls permit.
RE: Client Certified WAP 1.2.1
Question:What exactly is a client certified WAP 1.2.1? Does Client certified WAP 1.2.1 products means that it must support Push, UAProf , etc.? If no, is it possible to have a client certified WAP 1.2.1 with the same functionalities as a client certified WAP 1.1? What are the benefits of having a client certified WAP 1.2.1?
Answer: When a client is certified for any WAP release (e.g. WAP1.1 or WAP J2K), it means that it must support all the "Mandatory" features listed in
1. Class Conformance Requirements (CCR), which is at the level of specifications (e.g. Push, UAProf etc.)
2. Static Conformance Requirements (SCR) for each specification which is at the level of detail within a given specification.
In addition, a client can support whatever "Optional" features it likes. An easy way for you to get the list of features supported by a certified client for any WAP release is to ask the certified client for its WAP Certification Report (WCR). The WCR lists each of the specs in CCR and each of the items in SCRs, and provided information on the following:
a) The set of features that is mandatory in order to be supported for the release by all clients.
b) The exact set of optional features supported by the certified client in addition to the mandatory ones.
c) Whether a given supported feature was tested or not as part of the certification campaign. Note that even if it was not tested, the client is still legally obligated to be conformant to WAP specs, and onus is on client to prove that they are conformant if someone points out that they are not.
Please be aware that there are currently only WAP 1.1 certified clients. As such, WCRs are only for them, and not for WAP J2K. However, for WAP J2K, you can ask for their Implementation Conformance Statement (ICS). The ICS is essentially the input from which the WCR ultimately gets generated. From the ICS, you can get following pieces of information -
a) The set of features that are mandatory to be supported for the release by all clients.
b) The exact set of optional features supported by the certified client in addition to the mandatory ones.
You cannot get whether a given feature has been tested or not from ICS. Having said this, the simple way to get the answer to your specific question is to look at the ICS for WAP 1.1 and ICS for WAP J2K and look at the list of mandatory features in both.
If the difference in the mandatory features is zero between WAP 1.1 and WAP J2K, then you could theoretically have a WAP J2K client with exactly same functionality as WAP 1.1 if neither implements any optional feature. In practice, it is highly likely that WAP J2K clients will support several optional features and will have more functionality than WAP 1.1 clients.
Answer 2: The Class Conformance Requirements for WAP V1.2.1 or June 2000 Conformance Release are available on the web site at
http://www1.wapforum.org/tech/documents/WAP-215-ClassConform-20001213-a.pdf
This clearly states Class C (data only): mandatory features of Browser (WAE + WML + WMLScript + WMLScriptLibs + UACache) + protocol stack are mandatory; optional features of Browser + protocol stack and the entire specs for Security, UAPROF, PUSH, WTA, WIM, WMLScriptCryptoLibs all optional.
Class B (data + telephony): mandatory features of Browser + Protocol Stack + PUSH + WTA + Security all mandatory, Optional features of Browser + Protocol Stack + PUSH + WTA + Security and entire specs for UAPROF, WIM, WMLScriptCryptoLib all optional. Class A (complete): All mandatory and optional features of all specs are mandatory
So the answer to your question is "no" and what it brings to have V1.2.1 certification is testing and compliance to a tighter specified set of specifications as there were improvements between V1.1 and V1.2.1 in most specs.
RE: Cookie RFC2965
Question:Is cookie RFC2965 conformance on the cards of WAP Forum specifications?
Answer: The current HTTP State Management specification calls out support for RFC2109 the predecessor of RFC2965 and the appropriate RFC at the time the HTTPSM specification was originally written. The group regularly checks whether RFCs are updated and whether supporting the updated RFC makes sense. This is one such case. It has been discussed.
RE: Denying Access to a WAP Application
Question: Does a cellular carrier have the capability of denying user access to a WAP application? If so, what are the criteria for doing so?
Answer: This is an issue that deals with service provider policy and not one of technology and WAP Forum specifies technology. Any service provider may choose to deny a user access to a WAP application for one of a number of reasons but the reasons for this and the means to achieve it are in principle no different to that of any other internet application.
RE: End Session Command
Question: Can a phone hang-up be associated with an end session command?
Answer: No. There is nothing indicated in the WAP Specifications that specifies how or when a proxy should indicate to an application server that the session has terminated whether explicit tear-down of the session or abrupt loss of connectivity. Certainly NAS and GGSN components involved in the end to end transport may generate alerts as to connectivity loss which may allow your application server to know given the right supporting infrastructure.
RE: Linking WAP applications to a database
Question: Is it possible to link WAP applications to a database?
Answer: WAP is no different to other web technologies. Access to a database is a server side function and not a function of the markup language. There are many techniques to do this depending on the server side technology you are using.
There are some very good texts on these subjects in the context of WAP including "Dynamic WAP Application Development" from Manning.
RE: MIDI
Question: Which version of WAP supports MIDI or SP-MiDI format?
Answer: WAP does not support MIDI. Devices may or may not implement this functionality but this is a device/UA issue.
RE: MSISDN in Cookie
Question: Is the MSISDN address is sent to the server in an HTTP-cookie?
Answer: There is nothing in the WAP specifications that requires the sending of an MSISDN in a cookie. There have been many discussions of the reasons why the sending of the MSISDN as an identifier may be problematic. To be precise, WAP has only released a cookie spec recently though suppliers of WAP gateways/proxies have been providing cookie proxy functions to allow applications to support cookies even though the devices don't. It is possible some manufacturers are using the MSISDN in the cookie as a form of client identifier to match requests and sessions etc. However this is an implementation issue not one for the specifications.
RE: WAP Proxy
Question: What are the minimum changes that need to be made to a web server computer so that it will respond to a WAP proxy? Where can this information be found?
Answer: All that is required from a web server to support WAP content when receiving request via HTTP from a WAP proxy is support for the various content types specified for WAP and the device, i.e. add .wml, wmls (and wmlc and .wmlsc if you have the WBXML tokeniser and WMLScript compiler available for your server), .wbmp for the wireless bitmap and any other graphics content types required.
RE: Radius in WAP Architecture
Question: Is information available regarding the (possible/eventual) use of Radius (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service) in the WAP architecture?
Answer: The use of Radius is not specified within the WAP Forum's specifications. Radius can be used as part of the establishment of base IP connectivity, e.g. dialup RAS or GGSN etc, or tied into user authentication processes in a number of ways. The actual use of Radius in these circumstances depends on the vendors' implementations
RE: Tracking Hits to .wml pages
Question: What method should be used in tracking Hits to .wml pages? Using MediaHouse's Stat Server, extensions can be added to the list, added .wml, but there are no results. I have considered an onload function that would write to a text file every time a page is hit. Do you have any recommendations, or examples?
Answer: There is no reason why normal methods would not work, including the MediaHouse Stat Server once appropriately configured. There seems to be references in their material for this product which should be addressed with them. Some aspects of WAP markup and script to can be used in conjunction with back end functions in the server, but the standard approach should be utilized.
RE: Use in JSP
Question: How do you use WAP & WML in JSP?
Answer: Using JSP with WAP is no different to using JSPs with the web. There are some books that cover this well including one my Hoover et al.
RE: Utilizing WAP on a web server
Question: How do you begin utilizing WAP with a web server?
Answer: There are four basic steps:
a) Ensure there are one or more WAP clients
b) Ensure there are is some means of access from those clients (LAN is an emulator, real wireless networks for devices) plus WAP gateways where necessary (e.g. wireless network access or LAN is using WAP protocols)
- Set up the web server for WAP content types to support (wml, wmlc, wmls, wmlsc, bmp etc..). WAP places no extra requirements to the web other than the support for its content types". Enter the five mime types from above and the corresponding file extension (e.g. .wml).
- Save and you are done! Now all you need is WAP content and a WAP browser.
RE: WAP & Cache
Question: Is the WAP standard explicit in how a terminal or gateway deals with caching?
Answer: The level of support of Caching semantics specified in WAP-120-CacheMod as this is a mandatory specification. (Please refer to the CCR) However a cache can be of Zero bytes length for a number of reasons - no cache storage implemented, no heap space available if implemented using this approach etc. Therefore, the behavior of caching may be different between devices and even on a device at different times. This will alter the number of fetches from an application server, but the application should not be altered as a result of this. The perception of the application on the user who is used to other devices or better cache performance at different times may differ.
RE: WAP over IP
Question: Is there information available regarding WAP over IP?
Answer: In the use of the WAP V1 protocols (WDP, WTP and WSP), WDP uses UDP/IP over all bearers that support IP access, e.g. GSM-GPRS, standard LANs etc. Detailed information can be found in WDP and architecture specifications.
In the use of WAP V2 protocols (TCP/IP + HTTP etc.), the WAP V2 Architecture and TCP specifications need to be reviewed.
For all the specs refer to the WAP Forum web site specification download area on the following URL: http://www.wapforum.org/what/technical.htm.
RE: WAP-167-Service Indication
Question: What is the reason for using "vnd.wap.si" for textual forms and
"vnd.wap.sic" for tokenized form (Table A.1.3 - SI-CF-003 & SI-CF-003)?
Answer: The terminal needs to be able to determine what kind of content it receives in order to process it correctly. This is accomplished by looking at the MIME media type, which is carried in the Content-Type header. Consequently, since the textual and binary representations are different from each other, although they carry the same information, they each need their own MIME media type (vnd.wap.si and vnd.wap.sic respectively).
Further, the Push Proxy Gateway also needs this information to adapt the push message to the receiving terminal's capabilities. If it receives a textual SI it may need to convert it into its binary counterpart, while it can leave a binary SI unaltered since it is mandated on all terminals supporting WAP push.
WAP 2.0
MULTIMEDIA
RE: Color, Animation and Sounds Support
Question: Is there a document which describes the image, sound file, and other media formats supported by MMS and WAP 2.0? Does WAP 2.0 support color, animation, and sampled sounds? Where are these formats documented?
Answer: WAP Forum's MMS specifications are silent on the content types supported. There are sufficient mechanisms specified by WAP Forum to allow content type negotiation between MMS client and application along with any MMS Proxy-Relay. The existing WAP content types would be good candidates for MMS content but clearly additional image content types etc are very likely to be supported by MMS devices. WAEMT only describes the WBMP that is the only unique image type. Devices supporting WAP Forum MMS may also support 3GPP MMS as both specifications share a common genesis. 3GPP has been more explicit over which content types are expected and this may be helpful in understanding this space, especially in GSM, GPRS and their evolution to 3G will be deployed, but really you need to contact device suppliers directly.
RE: Color Resolution
Question: What is the recommended color resolution for the display?
Answer: To date the WAP specifications have made no assumptions about the definition of displays. There have been some working assumptions about typical minimum displays for characters etc but nothing more.
RE: MMS Support of HTTP
Question: Is http supported between the client and the proxy/relay? The spec suggests that WSP is required but this is not consistent with the move towards HTTP1.1.
Answer: According to the specification, WAP-206 MMS Client Transactions, for e.g. chapter 7.1.1 says,
"The MMS Client that wishes to send an MM message SHALL invoke a WSP/HTTP POST operation with the M-Send.req message embedded as the content body."
This spec is using this "WSP/HTTP" coupling consistently. The intent of doing this is to indicate there is no bundle of MMS client transactions and WSP in principle. But because WAP HTTP spec wasn't stable enough when the MMS spec was produced, the issue may not have been fully addressed.
The MMS group knows there are a lot of voices similar to you and we're keeping it in mind because we're continuing MMS spec work.
RE: Network Layer
Question: Does WAP rely on the use of IP as the network layer protocol for communications between the WAP gateway and the mobile device? Or, is it an open protocol in that sense?
Answer: There is no requirement to WAP Gateway or proxy to implement WAP MMS based on WAP-206 and WAP-209 specifications. Because WAP MMS is the application framework on the top of WAP stack (1.X or 2.0, i.e. can be chosen, depending on other conditions). WAP Gateway is supposed to pass all MMS PDU through between MMS Client and MMS Proxy-Relay server. MMS Proxy-Relay server is NOT the same entity as WAP gateway, and rather the origin server and the push initiator from stack's point of view. You can get a better picture if you read WAP-205, MMS Architecture Overview specification.
MMS functionality is an independent set of features, thus it is not mandatory in order to conform to WAP 2.0 conformance itself.
RE: Pictograms
Question: In WAP-213-WAPInterPic-20010406-a, it states that images must be supported in the first release, but does not specify what format images need to be in. The examples provided in the document uses .wbmp images. Does this imply that wmbp is the only format supported or are other formats such as jpeg and gif supported?
Answer: The graphics type for the Pictogram image can be any format supported by the device. WBMP is the only mandated graphics format for a WAP device supporting graphics but other types are likely to be supported. The mechanisms to advertise support for various image types are well known (accept headers, UAPROF etc.)
WTA
RE: Recommendation for Over The Air-HTTP
Question: Regarding the WAP 2.0 specification WAP-266-WTA-20010711-p, is WTA recommended for Over-The AIR-HTTP? Section 5.2 of the specification suggests that dedicated secure WDP ports are a must for WTA services. Does it mean WTA services are limited to WSP? If it is so, it is not consistent with the move towards HTTP 1.1.
Answer: WTA group has noticed the above and has marked this as one of issues that should be addressed in its future releases. The transition from WSP to HTTP requires, for WTA, to use other WAP security tools. Unfortunately, this was not possible for WAP 2.0 partially because of more urging issues and partially because the required security features, which are mandatory for WTA (and optional for other parts in WAP), were still in development at the time.
MISC.
RE: Backwards Compatibility
Question: Is WAP 2.0 backwards compatible?
Answer: WAP V2 has been designed to be backward compatible in different ways depending on the part of WAP you are considering. The protocols and security of WAP V1 are included in WAP V2, with some enhancements, thereby allowing backwards compatibility directly. To this WAP V1 protocols have been added the new Internet protocols, i.e. TCP/IP, HTTP/1.1 and TLS. At the protocol level compatibility is a function of the mandated support for the traditional and Internet protocol stacks and the CCR defines this level of compatibility. Currently this is in Architectural Consistency review and states that a server/proxy must support both stacks ensuring compatibility. At the application enablement functions the story is slightly different. The requirement given to the group was backwards compatibility from WAP V2 devices to WAP V1 services. This gave somewhat more latitude than a strict backwards compatibility. Backwards Compatibility is ensured in the following ways.
- a device may implement (WAESpec AND WAEMT AND WMLScript AND WMLScript Libs AND UACaching AND HTTPSM) AND (WML V2 OR (WML1.3 AND XHTMLMP))
- The option of XHTMLMP AND WML V2 gives direct access to the new WAP2 services, which are to be written in XHTMLMP, and existing WAP V1 services.
- The option of WML2 allows existing WAP V1 services and WAP2 services. However while WML2 contains all the semantics of WML1 it is not syntactically identical as deference has been given to XHTML wherever possible. Therefore a translation from WML1 to WML2 for WAP V1 services is required. You will also note that WAP V1 devices are not assured access to WAPV2 services as this would require translation and WAP Forum has chosen not to specify any transform as the semantics of WML2 or XHTMLMP cannot be loosely translated to WML1. However vendors may market offerings for this.
RE: Fonts
Question: Which font type do WAP mobiles use on their screen?
Answer: WAP Forum makes no statement of font types in its version 1 specifications.
For these devices the font is determined by the device manufacturer. Neither do the version 1 specifications provide any means to switch fonts should more than one be provided other than italic, bold and so on where different fonts could be used to show differences. WAP version 2 includes a style specification WCSS that is a profile of CSS2 with some extras. This will provide more presentational control in conjunction with the markup language specifications including fonts.
RE: SCRs
Question: Does WAP 2.0 have a SCR and CCR compiled similar to the WAP 1.2? If so, where is it located?
Answer:
c) All specs have SCRs in them giving the conformance criteria for that spec. There was a CCR that addressed the mandatory and optional features for device classes for WAP V1.1, WAP 1.2 and WAP1.2.1. This is not yet available for WAP 2.0.
d) Write the content.
RE: WAP Enabled Software
Question: Is there a specific type of software that needs to be installed on the server in order to be wap enabled?
Answer: To be able to read "WAP" pages the WAP capable browser needs to be told that it is receiving WAP pages. The way a server does this is by letting the browser know what mime type s to accept. An example of a mime type is text/vnd.wap. The specific manner to do this will depend on the web server. Apache is a common web server, which requires the following steps:
- Go to the configuration file in ~/www/conf/httpd.conf , there you will see a bunch of mime types. Type the following information:
AddType text/vnd.wap.wml - wml
AddType image/vnd.wap.wbmp - wbmp
AddType application/vnd.wap.wmlc - wmlc
AddType text/vnd.wap.wmlscript - wmls
AddType application/vnd.wap.wmlscriptc - wmlsc
- Save the file and restart.
- If you have IIS server you need to find the Internet service manager. This is under Admin tools on a windows 2000 server but it all depends on how you set up IIS.
Once you have found it click your way to "File types" under "HTTP headers
