.KEYWORD channel
.FLYINGHEAD MOBILE INTERNET
.TITLE Learn how to let your users personalize AvantGo Channel content
.OTHER
.SUMMARY We all know that AvantGo Mobile Internet Channels allows you to download your favorite Web content to your Palm OS device and that the channels are usually built as small versions of the corresponding Web sites. But what you may not know is that channels can be built to let users personalize their content. In this article, Vladimir Campos will show you how construct just such a mobile channel.
.AUTHOR Vladimir Campos
In Michael Connick’s article, "Be enterprising, use AvantGo for offline browsing," in the June 2001 issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition (at http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200106/internet0601001.html), he showed you why AvantGo is valuable in today’s fast-paced mobile workforce, as it allows you to browse Web content off-line on your Palm handheld.
We all know that AvantGo Mobile Internet Channels allow you to download your favorite Web content to your Palm OS device and that the channels are usually built as small versions of the corresponding Web sites. But what you may not know is that channels can be built to let users personalize their content. This is a very useful feature for both developers and users.
In the enterprise, valuable corporate information is often stored on the Web. If an AvantGo channel were created, it could provide access to this same information to the mobile workforce. Of course, some information is only going to be relevant to particular individuals. By creating a customizable channel, you can allow your workforce (or any other group of readers) to access only the information they need, saving time and memory on their handhelds.
Let’s take a look at some examples of this feature in a real world context, and then we’ll begin to look at how you can create these kinds of channels.
.H1 Examples of customizable channels
If you’re a My Yahoo user on the Web, you can sign up for the Yahoo Channel at AvantGo (at http://www.avantgo.com). Once you have the channel downloaded to your PDA, you’ll see the message, "Hello, Guest – Sign In" at the top of the screen just bellow the Yahoo logo, as shown in Figure A.
.FIG A You’ll see this message on the Yahoo Channel login screen.
Tap on "Sign In" and enter your Yahoo username and password. Next time you synchronize, you’ll be receiving your personalized information from My Yahoo. After synchronization you’ll also be able to personalize the content of certain topics, such as "Weather" and "Stock" on the channel itself, without needing to go to the My Yahoo site on the Web.
To take advantage of personalization in the Yahoo Channel, you need to be a Yahoo registered user and have personalized content on the Web.
Now I invite you to install the Reuters Channel, and you’ll notice some differences.
The main difference is that you don’t need to be a Reuters registered user on the Web. In fact, there’s no "Sign In" option on the channel either. Instead, you’ll have some topics with no hyperlink and the "Add category" option beside them, in this case with a hyperlink. Needless to say, when you tap on "Add," you’ll be able to add that category and its content to your PDA.
In fact, you’ll be sent to the "Update Preferences" page where you can select the categories you wish to add. You can also uncheck the ones related to the content you don’t want on your device, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B Here is the Reuters Channel "Update Preferences" screen.
After making the changes you need to tap on "Update Preferences" and synchronize.
How does this work? Since the Channels are built using HTML tags, you can take advantage of cookies in order to personalize and send specific content to each user. The differences between cookies on a regular Web site and cookies in AvantGo Channels is that in the channel, the cookie is stored in the AvantGo server and linked to an AvantGo username and an ID on your database.
.H1 Creating a channel with preferences
To create a channel with preferences, you’ll also need to use forms, which are always associated with actions. The reader ( the user) fills and submits the form, and after being processed by the server, the results are shown to the reader in a new page. Even though handhelds are usually not connected to the Internet on a full-time basis, this is also how it works with AvantGo. The difference is that after submitting a form from a channel, the person accessing the content will be sending all the data to the "Forms Manager." The information will be kept there until the handheld is synchronized again. After the HotSync, the information is processed on the server, and an HTML page is sent back to the PDA.
You can keep a database on your server with a list containing user IDs and their preferences. When a user accesses the channel page through AvantGo, your system will check the cookie for that user and obtain his or her ID. You can then use the ID to look up preferences on the database and generate a custom page using dynamic pages (i.e., ASP, PHP, etc.).
If your user wishes to change his preferences, he can use the forms on the channel to check or uncheck the items. And if it’s the first time your user is accessing the channel, a cookie will be addressed, and he’ll receive an ID in your database. This user will then receive a default page, which he can personalize in the future.
If you wish to implement your channel with personalization fields using cookies and forms, you’ll find a very detailed explanation on the AvantGo Web site (at http://avantgo.com/doc/developer/channels/creating/personal/personal.html).
.H1 What are the benefits?
What are the benefits for creating and using channels that can be personalized? There are lots of advantages. First, you can allow the channels to be personalized by users, saving development time and resources. It’s also possible to create a sign-in page, which is very important in a lot of cases: to offer personalized content, for e-commerce purposes, or any other kind of interaction between the end user and the Web site.
As for your channel users, it’s important to know that there are different kinds of users. Maybe one is more concerned about the information itself and the images are not so important, especially to save memory. Or maybe it’s important to have the same kind of information available in the handheld as there is on a customized page on the Web.
The most important thing you should have in mind is that your users can make the channel work and look just the way they want it to, optimizing the use of the PDA resources and making it more comfortable to use.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on AvantGo, visit http://www.avantgo.com.
For more information on implementing your channel with personalization fields using cookies and forms, visit http://avantgo.com/doc/developer/channels/creating/personal/personal.html.
For the article, "Be enterprising, use AvantGo for offline browsing," by Michael Connick in the June 2001 issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, visit http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200106/internet0601001.html.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
ZATZ now offers a quick, easy, flexible and inexpensive way to use article reprints in your marketing and promotion efforts. You can now get article reprints for a one-time fee of only $200. For details, visit http://mediakit.zatz.com/reprints.
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.BIO Vladimir Campos is LatinGo Associate Director and MobileSite.com.br co-founder. For more information, visit http://www.vladimircampos.net/eng.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6fe37
