1.1 What does an M-Business channel do, exactly?

Basically, when a user synchronizes his or her iAnywhere Solutions account, we go out and grab Web pages off of the sites they subscribe to, and send a compressed version of these pages to the user's mobile device where the user can browse them at his or her leisure. You can think of an M-Business channel as a combination of a Web spider, mobile device browser, and a translation tool. For a detailed description of how a channel works, see What is an M-Business channel?.

1.2 If I want to create an M-Business channel, does that mean I have to start using M-Business Server to serve my Web pages?

No. You continue using the same Web server that you have been using.

1.3 So what work do I need to do to create an M-Business channel?

Your job is to basically create a lite version of your Web site in HTML that looks good on a small screen, optimized for at least two device types (for example, Palm and Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2003), and serve it from your Web server. Your M-Business Sync Server will take care of downloading the pages, compressing them, and displaying them for whatever mobile device the user has. See Creating your first channel, and Design Considerations for Channel Content.

1.4 Does an M-Business channel work with ASP? What about ColdFusion? Vignette? PHP?

An M-Business channel will work with any publishing system you have, as long as it is outputting HTML pages.

1.5 I want to test my M-Business channel, but I do not have a Palm OS or Microsoft OS device. What should I do?

There is a nice emulator available at Palm's Web site, although you have to jump through a few legal hoops to get access to their ROMs. And Microsoft now has robust emulators for Windows Mobile 5 and Microsoft Smartphone platforms. Emulators have many advantages—up to a point. The biggest drawback is that you can never be 100% certain that the emulator is behaving exactly like a physical device at all times.

Our advice would be to convince a friend to lend you their physical device for a week or two. It will give you a better sense of how people will really use your M-Business channel. Or just go buy a mobile device of your own—they are fairly inexpensive these days. (And if you are lucky, you might be able to expense it.)

1.6 How do I design a page that looks nice on a small screen?

Just follow a few simple guidelines about which HTML tags to avoid and how to optimize graphics for different platforms. See Designing pages for the channel Web site and Designing graphics for channel pages.

1.7 How do I preview my channel before I take it live?

You can just create a custom channel using the URL of the channel you are developing. See Creating your first channel.

1.8 How large can my channel be?

You can specify your maximum channel size to be anything you would like, to a reasonable limit. Most channels have a 100KB maximum size by default. While some channels choose to have a maximum size as large as 500KB, we recommend trying to stay closer to the 100 – 250KB range. See Size limit issues.

1.9 Do you support (insert HTML tag here)?

For a list of the specific HTML tags and JavaScript elements that are available for you to use in your channel pages, see HTML 4 Support in M-Business Client 5.x and Later.

1.10 Can I set up permanent channel content on users' devices—content that never expires?

If you have a channel that you expect will have unchanging content over an extended period of time, you can define that channel as Sync Only. This eliminates most of the communication with the Web server that is required to determine if the Web pages on the device need to be updated.

With connected users, this decreases the time it takes to synchronize the device. With wireless users, it decreases the time it takes to display the page every time the user accesses it. Wireless users are more likely to notice the difference, because M-Business Client does not have to go online to check for an update before displaying Sync Only channel content. See Understanding channel settings.

1.11 Are backslash characters ("\") OK in URLs in channel Web pages?

No. Some browsers, such as Internet Explorer, process automatically convert backslash characters in URLs to forward slashes ("/"). M-Business Client does not.

1.12 Can I use mailto: and phoneto: in my channels on devices that support an e-mail or phone capability?

Yes. M-Business Client supports use of mailto: and phoneto: with the <a> tag's href attribute. See HTML 4.01 tags and attributes.