The most common type of mobile channel features standard HTML. This type of channel is a set of HTML pages described by a CDF file, which describes the items that Internet Explorer 4.0 should download to the device for offline viewing. Users can also view this type of Mobile Channels Web site using any standard Internet browser. For more information about the subset of HTML that Mobile Channels supports, see Mobile Channels Design Guidelines.
The combination of HTML and the rich set of tools for page generation provide you with a great deal of flexibility. One such tool is Active Server Pages (ASP). Using ASP, you can generate unique HTML pages and CDF files for individual users. For example, a user selects their favorite movie theater listings from a movie theater mobile channel. This channel uses Active Server Page technology, which enables the ASP page to create and download a cookie to the user’s Internet Explorer 4.0 application. The cookie notifies Internet Explorer 4.0 as to which movie theater listings the user views. Internet Explorer 4.0 then downloads only the movie listings for those specific theaters. Active Server Pages technology enables users to take only what they need from a mobile channel, thus decreasing download time and saving memory.