Skins are most often used to provide pages that are optimized for platform-specific access. For example, WorkflowFirst comes with an alternate skin for access by primitive web browsers on mobile phones such as the BlackBerry.

But other alternative platforms can also be supported. For example an Adobe Flash interface can be provided, or perhaps a Microsoft Silverlight interface that is optimized for Windows Phones. Special support could also be provided for HTML5-based browsers, utilizing the enhanced display features of that platform such as transitions and 3D.

Because of the flexibility of the skinning feature, you can even use Skins to support new data access protocols, such as OData. The output is by no means limited to HTML and can actually return any text-based document.

To indicate to the application that you wish to view the content from a different platform, a special code is added to the URL:

 http://localhost:85/dataview.aspx?view=Applications&focus=/4d3a2fe3-406d-4a65-9601-fd09b8e92480&platform=mob 

By adding the 'platform' URL value we can specify the name (code) of the platform to enable for this page view. This platform will be maintained throughout navigation of the application site.

By default the 'mob' platform comes with the application and provides access via an HTML interface that is optimized for small screens and basic web browsers such as those found on mobile phones.

But any additional platforms can easily be added, just by creating an HTML file, without any programming. This process will be discussed in this section.