We have seen in previous articles how to develop Mobile
Web Forms using the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit. We can make use of the
Mobile Web Forms controls to add controls which will be rendered on the client
side and also have a server side object representation. The controls provide a
big spectrum of UI functionality on varied target devices and expose properties
methods and events in the server side object model.
However, in simple cases, we may need to just add some
plain text and basic markup to the Mobile Web Form - content which does not
require any server side manipulations. In this case, we can directly add the
literal text to the Mobile Web Form. The Mobile Web forms support a very limited
number of literal markup tags directly specified on the web form, namely, <a>,
<b>, <br>, <i> and <p> . The tags specified in the literal text may get
converted to another format and if the literal text between two controls
contains only white space, it will be ignored. To introduce a break between two
controls using literal text, use " " in addition to the white space.
The Mobile Internet Controls Runtime generates a
LiteralText control to represent the literal text in the control tree. You must
keep this in mind when you are accessing controls programmatically.
Let's take a look at a simple example of using literal
text within a Mobile Form.
![Litera1-in-vb.net.gif]()
Figure: Sample - Using literal text within Mobile
Web Forms.
Complete Code Listing
MobileWebForm1.aspx
<%@ Register TagPrefix="mobile" Namespace="System.Web.UI.MobileControls"
Assembly="System.Web.Mobile, Version=1.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
%>
<%@ Page language="VB" Codebehind="MobileWebForm1.aspx.vb"
Inherits="mobweb01.MobileWebForm1" AutoEventWireup="false" %>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft Visual Studio 7.0">
<meta name="CODE_LANGUAGE" content="VB">
<meta name="vs_targetSchema" content=http://schemas.microsoft.com/Mobile/Page>
<body Xmlns:mobile="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Mobile/WebForm">
<mobile:Form id="Form1" runat="server">
<B>Literal Text Example for Mobile Web
Forms</B> <br />
<p>This example shows how to add literal text within mobile forms. Go to <A href="www.microsoft.com/mobile/pocketpc/default.asp">Microsoft
Pocket Pc Web
Site</A>. </p> <p>
<I>Next read the instructions carefully.</I>
</p>Please Enter your Name:
<mobile:TextBox id="Name" runat="server"></mobile:TextBox>
</mobile:Form>
</body>
NOTE: This article is purely for demonstration. This article should not
be construed as a best practices white paper. This article is entirely original,
unless specified. Any resemblance to other material is an un-intentional
coincidence and should not be misconstrued as malicious, slanderous, or any
anything else hereof.
Conclusion:
We have seen in this article how to add text and basic
html markup elements directly to Mobile Web Forms with simple requirements. You
can mix the use of literal text and Mobile Web controls to provide a convenient
interface for your mobile web sites.