1. XHTML MP (XHTML Mobile Profile) Introduction

1.1. What is XHTML MP?

XHTML MP (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language Mobile Profile) is the markup language defined in WAP 2.0. WAP 2.0 is the most recent mobile services specification created by the WAP Forum (now the Open Mobile Alliance [OMA]). The specification of WAP CSS (WAP Cascading Style Sheet or WCSS) is also defined in WAP 2.0. WAP CSS is the companion of XHTML Mobile Profile and they are used together. With WAP CSS, you can easily change and format the presentation of XHTML MP pages.

XHTML Mobile Profile is a subset of XHTML, which is the stricter version of HTML. XHTML Mobile Profile is XHTML Basic (also a subset of XHTML) plus some additional elements and attributes from the full version of XHTML.

The goal of XHTML Mobile Profile is to bring together the technologies for mobile Internet browsing and that for the World Wide Web. Before the coming out of XHTML Mobile Profile, WAP developers make use of WML and WMLScript to create WAP sites, while web developers use HTML / XHTML and CSS style sheets to build web sites.

With the announcement of XHTML Mobile Profile, the markup language of the wireless world and the wired world finally converges. XHTML Mobile Profile and WAP CSS give wireless Internet application developers more and better presentation control. The greatest advantage, however, is that the same technologies can now be used to develop both the web and wireless version of your Internet site. You can use any web browsers to view your WAP2.0 application during the prototyping and development process.

The previous version of WAP is 1.2.1. WAP 1.2.1 sites are developed using WML and WMLScript. WAP 2.0 is backward compatible to WAP 1.x. So, a WAP 2.0 wireless device can be used to visit both XHTML MP / WCSS and WML / WMLScript sites. If you are interested in learning WML or WMLScript, you may want to read our WML tutorial and WMLScript tutorial.

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