Channel Browser

A user launches Channel Browser to select and view a mobile channel. The Channel Browser uses a CDF file to determine what content to display to the user. Therefore, the Channel Browser can only display pages described by a CDF file.

The Channel Browser main window holds a command bar, a Channel Bar, and an HTML control. The command bar features a menu and a toolbar. The Channel Bar displays icons of subscribed channels. The icon files can be in GIF or JPEG format. The following code example shows how to specify the icons in CDF files using the LOGO tag with STYLE setting to “ICON.”

<LOGO STYLE="Icon" 
       ID="icon1"  
       HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/MobileChannels/icon1.gif"/>

The HTML control displays the content for the current channel. You are responsible for supplying content, specifying page layout, and providing the navigation scheme from within the channel. Except for a smaller screen size, Channel Browser is modeled after the Internet Explorer 4.0 browser on a desktop computer. This similarity provides a consistent Web experience for Windows CE users.

Channel Browser includes Home Channel, a virtual channel at the top of the channel tree that you can see in Channel Explorer Home Channel contains links to the main pages of all subscribed channels. A built-in, automatically generated Home Channel HTML page displays the subscribed channels. Users can access this channel using the Home Channel command from the Go menu.

From the Go menu of Channel Browser, a user can choose Explore Channel to bring up the Channel Explorer dialog box. This pop-up window provides a hierarchical view of the mobile channels. It offers users a shortcut to channel navigation without having to trace through all the intermediate pages. Each channel and item may have an icon associated with it. Top-level channels are listed in order, as specified in the Preferences item in the Files menu. Within a channel, the subchannels and items are listed according to the hierarchy specified in the CDF file. The icon displayed at each level is derived from the LOGO tag in CDF, as explained earlier. If you fail to supply a logo, the default channel or item icon is used. The TITLE tag specifies the name of each channel, as shown in the following code example.

<CHANNEL>
   <TITLE>Mobile Channel Tips</TITLE>
    …
</CHANNEL>

By choosing the Properties command on the File menu of Channel Browser, a user can examine item properties from the Item Properties panel for any item page displayed in the browser. The information, including the title of the item and the date of creation and last modification, is extracted from the CDF file defining the item.