RE: XHTML to WML problem

Subject: RE: XHTML to WML problem
From: Dylan Walsh <Dylan.Walsh@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 16:02:32 +0100
This stuff is somewhat off topic for the list, so apologies, but WML is "the
other" XML-based presentation markup language in general use, apart from
XHTML, so relevent to a lot of XSLT users out there.

>Hi all,
>I want to convert an XHTML document to WML and deliver it to a WAP device.
>However there is a limitation on the amount of information that can be sent
>down to the WAP device - on Nokia 7110 I thinks its about 1.4Kb. I use XSLT
>to convert to WML. I then need to break down this file into 1.4Kb chunks.
>Has anybody out there done anything like this? 

I have done WML and XSLT, but never worried about the chunks.

Here is my take on it: In reality, 1.4k represents a lot of scrolling on the
phone. Try it. If you are approaching 1.4k (unless it is divided into lots
of cards) your page is badly designed. Keep it short & sweet.

>Other factors to consider are:
>1.WML is compiled to WMLC which also compresses the file to some degree
>before sending it to the WAP device. Would you have to go back and forth to
>the compiler to accurately divide up the file. What would the performance
>issues be? Or should you simply not bother going to the compiler, and
>'guess' the size from the original WML file.

Going back and forth doesn't sound good - I think guessing is a better bet.
On the subject of guessing, it seems to me that plain text doesn't compress
very well anyway in WAP (judging from the Nokia WAP toolkit 1.3beta). What
the gateway seems to compress is the markup - the WML tags. If you have
written your deck, try compressing it, without any text in it. If it
compresses to say 300 bytes, then make sure the text you get from the
database, or whatever, is less than 1.1k.

>2. How would you deal with WBMPs, how would you find out the size of these
>graphics.

You are going to have to create your WBMPs in advance, so you are going to
know their size. They are not compressed anymore after the WBMP is created.


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