4.6. XHTML MP Does Not
Support Programmable Softkeys
Programmable
softkey is a great feature of WML. The <do> WML tag is used to
program softkeys. Users can select frequently used options
conveniently by clicking the left softkey or right softkey of a
mobile phone.
You
cannot program softkeys in XHTML MP. An alternative is to make use of
the accesskey attribute. The accesskey attribute is
used to specify a keypad shortcut. Anchor links and submit buttons
support the accesskey attribute. This is an example:
<a
accesskey="1" href="part1.xhtml">XHTML MP
Tutorial Part 1</a><br/> <a accesskey="2"
href="part2.xhtml">XHTML MP Tutorial Part 2</a><br/> <a
accesskey="3" href="part3.xhtml">XHTML MP
Tutorial Part 3</a>
If
the user presses "1" of the keypad, the WAP browser will go
to "part1.xhtml" directly. With the accesskey
attribute, the user can trigger an action with just one click in an
XHTML MP page. This behavior is similar to what can be achieved by
softkeys.
The
-wap-accesskey property of WAP CSS can be used as an alternative of the accesskey
attribute.
On
some Nokia WAP browsers, all anchor links and submit buttons that
have a keypad shortcut specified by the accesskey attribute
are included in the Options menu automatically. Users can bring out
the Options menu by clicking the left softkey. The label of an anchor
link in the Options menu is the text enclosed in the <a></a>
tags. For image links and submit buttons, the labels in the Options
menu are the alt attribute value of the <img> tag and
the value attribute value of the <input> tag
respectively. For example:
<a
accesskey="1" href="part1.xhtml">XHTML MP
Tutorial Part 1</a><br/> <a accesskey="2"
href="part2.xhtml"><img src="icon.gif"
height="40" width="40" alt="XHTML MP
Tutorial Part 2" /></a><br/>
<form
action="xhtml_mp_tutorial_proc.asp"
method="get"> <p> Which part of our
XHTML MP tutorial do you like most?<br/> <input
type="text" name="tutorial_part" title="Edit"
/><br/> <input accesskey="3"
type="submit" value="Submit Form"
/> </p> </form>
In
the above XHTML MP example, the text in bold will become the label in
the Options menu. The label is truncated if it is too long.
Note
that this feature is not available on non-Nokia WAP browsers.
4.7. XHTML MP Does Not
Support the <u> Tag
In
WML, the <u> tag is used to underline some text.
The
<u> tag does not exist in XHTML MP. To underline some text in
XHTML MP, you have to make use of the text-decoration property
of WAP CSS. For example, to underline the text of all level-1
headings, you can enter the following style statement in the WAP CSS
style sheet of your XHTML MP page:
h1
{ text-decoration: underline }
4.8. XHTML MP Does Not
Support the Format Attribute for Input Fields
In
WML, you can specify a value for the format attribute of an
<input> element to restrict the type and number of characters
that a user can enter in an input field.
In
XHTML MP, the format attribute has been removed from the
<input> element. The alternative is to make use of the
-wap-input-format property of WAP CSS. The -wap-input-format
property takes an input mask that has the same syntax as that of the
format attribute. For example, to restrict all input fields to
accept only five numeric characters, you can enter the following
style statement in the WAP CSS style sheet of your XHTML MP page:
input
{ -wap-input-format: "5N" }
You
can learn more about the -wap-input-format
property at the "Controlling
the Type and Number of Characters to be Entered in Text Fields
(-wap-input-format Property)"
section of our WAP
CSS tutorial.
4.9. XHTML MP Does Not
Support Posting of Data with Anchor Links
In
WML, the posting of user data to the server is done with anchor
links, like this:
... <p> What's
your name? <input name="name"/><br/> Which
part of our XHTML MP tutorial do you like most? <input
name="tutorial_part"/><br/> <anchor> <go
method="get"
href="xhtml_mp_tutorial_proc.asp"> <postfield
name="name" value="$(name)"/> <postfield
name="tutorial_part"
value="$(tutorial_part)"/> </go> Send
Data </anchor> </p> ...

 Sony
Ericsson T610
|

 Nokia
Mobile Browser 4.0
|
XHTML
MP does not support the posting of data with anchor links. Submit
buttons have to be used instead. The following XHTML MP markup does
the same thing as the previous WML markup. Further details about
posting data to the server will be covered at the "Sending
Data to the Server in XHTML MP" section of this tutorial.
... <form
action="xhtml_mp_tutorial_proc.asp"
method="get"> <p> What's your
name?<br/> <input name="name"/><br/> Which
part of our XHTML MP tutorial do you like most?<br/> <input
name="tutorial_part"/><br/> <input
type="submit" value="Send Data"/> </p> </form> ...

 Sony
Ericsson T610
|

 Nokia
Mobile Browser 4.0
|
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