Wireless Markup Language (WML), based on

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

, is a now-obsolete markup language intended for devices that implement the

Wireless Application Protocol Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieve ...

(WAP) specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyperlinks, text and image presentation, and forms, much like

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

(Hypertext Markup Language). It preceded the use of other markup languages used with WAP, such as

XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...

and HTML itself, which achieved dominance as processing power in mobile devices increased.

WML history

Building on Openwave's HDML, Nokia's "Tagged Text Markup Language" (TTML) and Ericsson's proprietary markup language for mobile content, the

WAP Forum WAP or Wap may refer to: Music * "WAP" (song), a 2020 song by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion Organizations * Weatherization Assistance Program, for US energy costs * Western Australia Party, a political party founded in 2016 * Western ...

created the WML 1.1 standard in 1998. WML 2.0 was specified in 2001, but has not been widely adopted. It was an attempt at bridging WML and

XHTML Basic XHTML Basic is an XML-based structured markup language primarily used for simple (mainly ''handheld'') user agents, typically mobile devices. XHTML Basic is a subset of XHTML 1.1, defined using XHTML Modularization including a reduced set of mo ...

before the

WAP 2.0 Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieve ...

spec was finalized. In the end,

XHTML Mobile Profile XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP) is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices. It is an XHTML document type defined by the Open Mobile Alliance. XHTML-MP is derived fr ...

became the markup language used in WAP 2.0. The newest WML version in active use is 1.3. The first company to launch a public WML site was Dutch

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

network operator

Telfort Telfort was a brand of Dutch mobile telecommunication company KPN. It operated a GSM mobile telecommunications service in the Netherlands. It marketed itself as being the cheapest option available, and went to some lengths to give the appeara ...

in October 1999 and the first company in the world to launch the

Nokia 7110 The Nokia 7110 is a GSM mobile phone announced in February 1999 and released in October 1999. It was the first mobile phone to run Series 40 and to come with a WAP browser. It was preceded by the Nokia 8146/8148 which was released in 1996 and it ...

. The

WML site was created and developed as side project to test the device's capabilities by a billing engineer called Christopher Bee and National Deployment Manager, Euan McLeod. The WML site consists of four pages in both Dutch and English that contained many grammatical errors in Dutch as the two developers were unaware the WML was configured on the

as the home page and neither were native Dutch speakers.

WML markup

WML documents are XML documents that validate against the WML DTD ( Document Type Definition)WAP Forum
"Wireless Markup Language (WML) 1.3 Document Type Definition"
/ref> . The W3C Markup Validation service (http://validator.w3.org/) can be used to validate WML documents (they are validated against their declared document type). For example, the following WML page could be saved as "example.wml":

This is a sample WML page.

A WML document is known as a “deck”. Data in the deck is structured into one or more “cards” (pages) – each of which represents a single interaction with the user. WML decks are stored on an ordinary web server configured to serve the text/vnd.wap.wml MIME type in addition to plain HTML and variants. The WML cards when requested by a device are accessed by a bridge (

WAP gateway A WAP gateway sits between mobile devices using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be ...

), which sits between mobile devices and the World Wide Web, passing pages from one to the other much like a

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate ...

. The gateways send the WML pages on in a form suitable for mobile device reception ( WAP Binary XML). This process is hidden from the phone, so it may access the page in the same way as a browser accesses

, using a URL (for example, http://example.com/foo.wml). (Provided the mobile phone operator has not specifically locked the phone to prevent access of user-specified URLs.) WML has a scaled-down set of procedural elements which can be used by the author to control navigation to other cards. Consider a service that lets you enter a zip code, and obtain a list of clickable phone numbers of pizza parlors and taxicabs in your immediate location:

Call A Taxi: 903-555-1212

Mobile devices are moving towards allowing more

and even standard HTML as processing power in handsets increases. These standards are concerned with formatting and presentation. They do not however address cell-phone or mobile device hardware interfacing in the same way as WML.

WML capability in desktop browsers

The Presto layout engine (used by

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

before its switch to Blink) understood WML natively.

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

based browsers (

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

(before its update to version 57),

SeaMonkey SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape ...

, MicroB) could interpret WML throug
WMLBrowser
addon. Google Chrome can also interpret WML via two extensions
WML
an
FireMobileSimulator

Criticism

References

External links

Technical Specifications at the WAP ForumXHTML-MP Authoring PracticesOpen Mobile Alliance
{{Authority control Wireless Application Protocol Open Mobile Alliance standards XML markup languages