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PQA and Web Clipping Basics
As was mentioned earlier, the PQA is the actual application installed on the Palm VII computing device. Web clippings are the result of requests
sent from the PQA to an Internet server. The reader will be relieved to know that both PQAs and Web clippings are both authored completely in HTML, resulting
in about a 15-minute learning curve (five of which is spent on downloads and installations!). To "compile" the HTML into a PQA, the Query Application Builder
is required. This simple application can be downloaded for free from the Palm Computing DevZone at http://www.palm.com/devzone/tools/wca_builder.zip (Windows version)
or http://www.palm.com/devzone/tools/wca_builder.zip (Mac version). Once the appropriate
PQA Builder is installed, the only other tool required is a Text- or non-WYSIWYG HTML editor. The general process required to build your PQA is as follows:
- Design and build your Web content (see notes below on HTML restrictions)
- Determine which portions of your Web application will change very rarely and which portions may change often. The portions that change
rarely should be built into the PQA to avoid unnecessary downloads. As an example, look at the WirelessDevNet Daily News
PQA. We built it so that the front page and an "About" page are built into the actual PQA. All other pages, however, represent our daily news links that change very regularly. Selecting
the option to view headlines results in a request back to the wirelessdevnet.com server and a Web clipping being sent. This separation between the
static content and dynamic content is what separates PQA development from standard Web publishing.
- Once your design has been completed, build the PQA using the Query Application Builder.
- Install the PQA onto the Palm VII device and the process is complete!
To construct the PQA using the Query Application Builder is ridiculously simple. Run the application and select the "root" of your PQA document tree (usually default.html or index.html) using the File/Open Index
menu option. The Query Application Builder will scan the links within your root document and will add all appropriate images and HTML files to the main
window. Selecting the File/Build PQA menu option will generate a working PQA ready to be installed onto your device.
Next: Notes on PQA Development
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