Japan had phones with lots of graphics well before smartphones. Those systems were not web-based. They were mobile-only, and for small screens.
China has another system. Many things are applets within the WeChat environment. This is a whole different world, using MINA, WXML, and WXSS. It's kind of like XML with an external XSS style sheet. Here's the official repo.[1]
It's interesting to see where that division leads. The XSS approach separates content and look much more strongly than HTML/CSS does. (At least as HTML/CSS is typically used. It's possible to have an HTML document with just the data, and use a single separate style sheet in CSs. There are people who argue for that, and some elegant examples.[2] But they are voices in the wilderness.)
The funny thing is, despite a different underlying technology, WeChat applets seem to look a lot like HTML/CSS web pages. The difference may be that the WeChat system was efficient enough to eliminate the demand for "native" smartphone apps.
China has another system. Many things are applets within the WeChat environment. This is a whole different world, using MINA, WXML, and WXSS. It's kind of like XML with an external XSS style sheet. Here's the official repo.[1]
It's interesting to see where that division leads. The XSS approach separates content and look much more strongly than HTML/CSS does. (At least as HTML/CSS is typically used. It's possible to have an HTML document with just the data, and use a single separate style sheet in CSs. There are people who argue for that, and some elegant examples.[2] But they are voices in the wilderness.)
The funny thing is, despite a different underlying technology, WeChat applets seem to look a lot like HTML/CSS web pages. The difference may be that the WeChat system was efficient enough to eliminate the demand for "native" smartphone apps.
[1] https://github.com/Tencent/weui-wxss
[2] https://every-layout.dev/blog/css-components/