Windows CE users can access the World Wide Web using a Windows CE-based device, such as a Palm-size PC, with the underlying technology Mobile Channels. This Windows CE technology adopts and extends Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (IE4) standards for offline Web browsing on a Windows CE-based device.
IE4 defines a channel standard for delivering information for offline Web browsing on a desktop computer. An IE4 channel is a self-describing Web site that contains all the information necessary for efficient download of Web content to a desktop computer. The Channel Definition Format (CDF) is a standard that contains meta information about a Web site and encapsulates the instructions to IE4 on how to download the site for offline browsing. IE4 defines three basic types of channels that all use the standard CDF technology or extensions to it: Active Channels, Desktop Components, and Software Distribution Channels.
The Mobile Channels technology introduces a fourth type of channel with its own extensions designed to offer offline browsing experiences to Windows CE users. A mobile channel is a Web site that conforms to the Mobile Channels CDF extensions.
Mobile Channels provides the following benefits:
The Mobile Channels technology embodies the following aspects:
Following Mobile Channels design guidelines, you create a mobile channel by developing a Web site. The site must be suitable for a Windows CE-based device in terms of format and quantity of information. A mobile channel uses standard HTML scripting techniques to render data-driven pages. It has three fundamental components: the CDF to define the channel, a set of script files to render the channel, and a set of data files to be rendered.
A content provider publishes a mobile channel on the Web or a corporate intranet by providing HTML links to the CDF. These links can appear on any HTML Web page, such as an existing standard Web site or desktop Active Channel. A mobile channel makes an excellent mobile complement to a traditional Web site. In addition, a mobile channel may be featured within the Mobile Channel Guide, which is similar in concept to the Active Channel Guide for IE4. For more information about publishing your mobile channel in the Mobile Channel Guide, see the http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/palmpc/channels/ Web site.
A channel subscription is a recurring update of information. It does not mean that the user makes payment for receiving the content. A user can subscribe to a mobile channel in a manner consistent with IE4 in the following ways:
A user can access a Mobile Channels CDF file within the context of a standard Web site or channel. Once the subscription is established, the Mobile Channels content is downloaded by IE4 to the desktop computer.
A channel provider can let a user choose to update a subscription, that is, to download new content on a one-time or recurring basis. Mobile Channels downloads information on a regular basis, keeping the channel up-to-date at all times.
Once a mobile channel has been downloaded by IE4 into a desktop computer's Internet channel cache, a user can synchronize the content of the site with a Windows CE-based device using Windows CE Services. In general, if a channel item is marked for synchronization in Windows CE Services, a mobile channel is synchronized each time the Windows CE-based device is attached to the desktop computer.
A user can view a mobile channel on a Windows CE-based device using an offline Web browser, such as the Channel Browser on the Palm-size PC. A user can also view a mobile channel directly on a desktop computer using the IE4 browser or Active Desktop. An IE4 user can download and view Mobile Channels content without having a Windows CE-based device, provided that he or she has the appropriate desktop computer software.
Because a mobile channel is intended to be viewed offline, there is no direct way for the system to track what links or pages a user is viewing. However, because you might need such traffic information to determine the usage pattern for a site, Mobile Channels provides a way to log and report this information to a Web site. Similar to IE4's offline logging mechanism, any page in a mobile channel can be marked for logging. As a user browses the channel, visited items are kept in a list. When the mobile device is next synchronized, this information is optionally transferred to the IE4 desktop computer. From there, it is uploaded to a Web site in the manner established for the IE4 offline logging feature.
A Mobile Desktop Component is a one-page channel designed to fit in a very small space. A mobile-channel provider may elect to have a Mobile Desktop Component appear in the Mobile Channels Active Desktop, or simply in Active Desktop on a Windows CE-based device, such as a Palm-size PC.