Mobile Applications Overview

Mobile Access software contains three mobile applications:

• Calendar

• Address book

• Mail

• Fax

The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate the key functionality offered by these three applications, while simultaneously providing a developer’s perspective of control flow through the individual JSP files.

Due to the large number of source files, this chapter does not attempt to provide a complete code review of every individual file. Instead, this chapter uses a tutorial-style format to bring users through each application, describing the key features of certain JSP files as they pertain to the current screen.

Each mobile application is based on JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) technology, and can be accessed through any mobile device supporting any of a number of standard markup languages -- for example, WML and XHTML. These three applications are accessed through the mobile Portal Desktop. Users can select an application for use and return to the mobile Portal Desktop when finished.

For your reference, the complete JSP file list for each application is provided in control flow reference charts in the Sun Java System Portal Server Mobile Access 7.1 Developer’s Reference guide.

Each application contains at least two full sets of JSP files: an AML-based set, and a WML-based set. Most mobile devices are supported using the AML-based JSP files. The output of the AML pages is processed by the rendering engine, which translates AML to device specific markup. Some WML devices are supported by the WML-based JSP files, whose output is returned directly to the WML device.

The JSP files involved with these three applications make extensive use of five custom tag libraries: cal, socs, ab, mail, and util. Each tag library is fully documented, with code examples, in the Sun Java System Portal Server Mobile Access 7.1 Tag Library Reference guide.