Porting some of our Java EE application to run on a mobile phone

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Hi.
We have a Java EE application (EJB/Servlets/JSP) and I got a new assignment:
To create a markup version of some pages to run on mobile phones.
Well, I don't know what to do, neither what I need.
Which markup to use:
HTML, WML or JSP?
Any simulators?
Any tips and tricks?
Any ideas?
Your help is highly appreciated

[Tim Holloway]

JSP isn't a markup language. It's a generator for markups, where the usual choise output is HTML, but can be anything, including XML, PDFs and even images.

Aside from that, however, it depends on the target phones. Older, more limited phones will probably need WAP. Newer and smarter phones can do HTML.

For HTML, the critical things to allow for are the smaller screen size (typically 240x320 pixels) and to avoid using fancy features that aren't part of the vanilla web - things like Flash, AJAX, multimedia stuff and so forth. You can test the appearance part by using a regular web browser and shrinking down the display window to match the screen size of the target device.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

What about JavaScript (not for Ajax)?

[Syam Sathyan George]

Yeap, i have seen some high end phones coming with pretty good browsers which support basic JavaScript functionality.

Cant expect the same in all vendor implementations, for Small Screen B to C apps its more than enough i hope, even then Testing will have to be carried out drastically to ensure portability accross Devices.