Chapter 1   Overview


This chapter discusses the:

• Extensions to the iPlanet Portal Server 3.0 Service Pack 3 software to support WML and cHTML clients

• Wireless Applications for WML and cHTML clients

Introduction

The Mobile Access Pack software is an extension to the iPlanet Portal Server 3.0 SP3 software. The iPlanet Portal Server supports only generic HTML clients. The Mobile Access Pack software extends its capability to build and deploy channels that can deliver content to multiple HTML and non-HTML (namely WML and cHTML) clients.

The Mobile Access Pack software includes:

• Extensions to the iPlanet Portal Server Desktop and its associated content providers

• Wireless applications that can deliver content from the iPlanet Calendar Server, iPlanet Messaging Server, and the Personal Address Book server via the iPlanet Directory Server

In order to serve the iPlanet Portal Server Desktop content to non-HTML clients, the Mobile Access Pack server includes extensions to the iPlanet Portal Server Desktop and services that make them client aware.

Client Awareness

Client awareness refers to the Mobile Access Pack server's ability to detect the type of client accessing the server and provide service to the client with the content in the format supported by the client. Besides supporting generic HTML clients, the Mobile Access Pack server can service WML and cHTML clients and can also be extended to support other clients.

Client Detection Module

In order to detect the type of client accessing the server, the Mobile Access Pack server uses a pluggable Client Detection module to determine the client's mobile device characteristics. For information on the Client Detector class and the Client Detection interface, see Appendix A "API Descriptions" and Appendix B "Sample Tasks."

Client Data Objects

The client's mobile device characteristics are stored in Client Data objects. The Client Data objects store various properties of the clients, such as userAgent, contentType, supported character set, etc. The Mobile Access Pack server provides Client Data objects for HTML, cHTML, and WML clients. For detailed information on Client Detection and Client Data, see Appendix A "API Descriptions," Appendix B "Sample Tasks," and Chapter 8 "Attributes and Schemas."

Extensions to iPlanet Portal Server

The Mobile Access Pack server includes extensions to the iPlanet Portal Server desktop, content providers, and authentication service to support cHTML and WML clients.

Templates are used to determine how responses to the client should be formatted. The Mobile Access Pack server includes templates to format responses for generic HTML, cHTML, and WML clients. The server uses the static content in the templates to display the component user interface. Tags are used for inserting dynamic data into the templates. For information on the tags used in these templates, see Chapter 7 "Tag Swapper Tags."

Client Specific Authentication

The Mobile Access Pack extends the iPlanet Portal Server authentication service to:

1. Detect the type of client accessing the server and validate that the requesting client type is supported by the server.

   The list of clients supported by the server are stored in Client Data objects.

2. Present the client specific authentication menu to the requesting client.

   The list of authentication modules supported by each client is stored in attributes. For more information on the authentication module attributes, see Chapter 8 "Attributes and Schemas." The Mobile Access Pack server uses template files for displaying the authentication menu. For detailed information on the templates used by the Mobile Access Pack to authenticate the user, see Chapter 2 "Authentication Template Files."

Wireless Desktop

The Mobile Access Pack server includes extensions to the various iPlanet Portal Server desktop providers to present the user's client specific user interface on WML and cHTML clients. For information on the template files used by the providers to display the desktop user interface, see Chapter 3 "Desktop Template Files."

Wireless Content Providers

The Mobile Access Pack server includes calendar, mail, and address book providers to display:

• Summary information from the iPlanet Calendar Server, iPlanet Messaging Server, and Personal Address Book server respectively

• Links to the specialized backend clients for interaction with the service

For information on the template files used to display the summary information, see Chapter 4 "Content Provider Template Files."

The Mobile Access Pack also includes a wireless Personal Notes and XML provider. The wireless Personal Notes provider, similar in functionality to the iPlanet Portal Server Personal Notes provider, can also support WML and cHTML clients. The XML provider enables integration of an arbitrary XML emitting service. It uses the JAXP 1.1 interface and the file lookup mechanism to retrieve the client specific XSL templates and display the XML content in the format supported by the requesting client.

The Mobile Access Pack also includes extensions to the iPlanet Portal Server User Info, URL Scraper, Post-it Notes, JSP, and Bookmarks providers to support content delivery to WML and cHTML clients. For information on the template files used by these content providers, see Chapter 4 "Content Provider Template Files."

File Lookup Mechanism

The Mobile Access Pack providers use the iPlanet Portal Server file lookup mechanism to retrieve templates for the client. Files are organized by various properties including locale, domain, and clientType. In order to locate the files, the server resolves the appropriate location of the template files by computing a file system path based on:

1. A system type, typically the domain

2. The user's configured locale

3. A component, typically the channel name

4. The client type

5. The filename

These parameters (domain, locale, component, clientType, and filename) are used to uniquely identify a template into the file system path. This path is used to retrieve the templates from the file system.

Within the clientType parameter is encoded a hierarchy of clientTypes starting with the most general and ending with the most specific; for example, WML/Nokia/7110/UP/9600 or WML/FooPhone/R520s/UP/9600. In order to select the appropriate template for the client, the server maps the clientType parameter directly into the file system path and attempts to retrieve the requested filename; for example, WML/Nokia/7110/UP/9600/filename. If that fails, then the most specific clientType attribute (such as 9600) is removed (such as WML/Nokia/7110/UP/filename) and the process is repeated until the template for that clientType is found.

For more information on the file lookup mechanism, see also the File Lookup section in the iPlanet Portal Server 3.0 SP3 Release Notes.

Wireless Applications

JSPs

The Mobile Access Pack provides JSP files to deliver content from the iPlanet Calendar Server, iPlanet Messaging Server, and the Personal Address Book server on WML and cHTML clients. For more information on the JSP files, see Chapter 5 "Application JSPs."

JSP Tag Libraries

The JSP files provide the static user interface. All the dynamic data (such as appointments from the calendar, mail headers from the inbox, entries from the address book) are retrieved using customized tag libraries. For more information on the tag libraries, see Chapter 6 "JSP Tag Libraries."