JP2000132469A - Display system for list of electronic mails - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To show a mail having no text without decreasing the number of mail matters which can be simultaneously displayed on a mail list screen by associating the information showing the presence or absence of a text with a subject and then displaying them on the same screen. SOLUTION: A mail client receives the list information and views a mail client screen 310 on a display. The screen 310 includes a mail list box 311 where the mail subjects, the transmitter mail addresses and the presence or absence of texts which are acquired as the list information are displayed, an open button 312, a mail production button 313 and an end button 314. The box 311 shows the presence or absence of texts, the transmitter mail addresses, etc. In such a constitution, the presence or absence of mail texts can be confirmed on a list screen and accordingly it is not required to open a text if no text exists. As a result, a user can shorten the mail reading time.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an electronic mail system, and more particularly to display of mail attributes on a mail list screen.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, opportunities to use electronic mail in business have increased, and the number of mails received by individuals per day has also increased. With the increase in the number of received e-mails, the time spent reading and replying to e-mails cannot be ignored, and efficient processing of e-mails is important for business promotion.

[0003] Also, there are cases where it is possible to convey a message only by the subject of the mail, such as a notice of holding a meeting or a response to the attendance of the meeting. If it is understood on the list screen, the operation of opening the mail can be omitted, and efficient mail processing can be realized.

When a part of the text is displayed on the mail list screen as in the above-described prior art, it is possible to recognize that the mail has no text by not displaying the text, but it is possible to display it at once. There is a problem that the number of mails decreases.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to express a mail having no text without reducing the number of mails that can be displayed at one time on a mail list screen.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has a mechanism for automatically judging that a mail has only a subject without a body, and determines whether or not the body of the mail is one of the items in the mail list display. Displayed on the mail list screen.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of an electronic mail system according to the present invention. The e-mail system 1 shown here is
A plurality of mail clients 4 as terminals for exchanging mails via a network (LAN or WAN) 2;
5, 6 and a mail server 3 as a management device for controlling distribution of mail.

Each of the mail clients 4, 5, and 6 is an electronic mail processing device according to the present invention, and a mail client control mechanism 1 for performing processing such as sending and receiving mail.
0, and a user interaction control mechanism 11 for interactive processing with the user.

The mail server 3 is an electronic mail processing device according to the present invention, and has a mail control mechanism 7 for controlling the distribution of mail transmitted from the mail clients 4, 5, and 6.
User information 8 associated with the mail control mechanism 7
And mail information 9 therein.

Based on the presence or absence of the body of the mail transmitted from the mail client that sent the mail, the mail control mechanism 7 requests the means for holding the body presence / absence information and the mail client to obtain the list information of the mail addressed to itself. Then, means for transmitting the body presence / absence information to the mail client as one of the list information is included. In one embodiment, the text presence information is stored as part of the mail information 9.

The mail server 3 and the mail clients 4, 5, and 6 are, for example, as shown in FIG.
This is a general computer including hardware such as a PU 20, a main storage device 21, a file system 22, and an input / output device 26 including a display 23, a keyboard 24, and a mouse 25. The user information 8, the mail information 9, and the like are stored in the file system 22, and are read into the main storage 21 as needed.

The mail control mechanism 7, the mail client control mechanism 10, and the user interaction control mechanism 11 are each realized by a program on hardware of a computer.
The program is stored in the file system 22, and is read into the main memory 21 when necessary, and is read by the CPU 20.
Is executed by

FIG. 3 shows an example of the user information 8. The user information 8 includes an identifier 101 of a user who uses the e-mail system 1, a login password 102 for obtaining permission to use the e-mail system 1, an e-mail address 103 for each user, and an identifier column 104 of the distributed e-mail. File. The user information 8 is information registered in advance before operating the system.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the mail information 9. The mail information 9 includes a mail identifier 201, a subject 202, and a body 20.
3. It is composed of a sender mail address 204, a delivery destination mail address 205, and a body presence / absence 206. The mail identifier 201 is a unique identifier issued for each transmitted mail. The subject 202 is the name of the mail. The body 203 is the contents of the mail. The sender mail address 204 is the mail address of the user who sent the mail. The delivery destination mail address 205 is a delivery destination mail address of the mail, and one mail can have a plurality of mails.

The body presence / absence 206 is information indicating whether or not the body of the mail exists. In the present embodiment, the presence / absence of the body of the mail and the absence of the body of the mail are indicated. There are two types of information. The body presence / absence 206 is information generated by the mail server 3 when the mail is transmitted from the mail client, by determining the presence / absence of the body of the mail. The body presence / absence 206 exists for each mail. The mail information 9 is updated by the mail control mechanism of the mail server 3 when an event such as transmission or deletion of a mail occurs.

Next, the operation of the user, the mail client, and the processing of the client when the user views the mail list or creates and sends the mail will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a display screen when the mail clients 4, 5, and 6 look at the mail list screen and create and send a mail. FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart of the overall processing of the mail clients 4, 5, and 6, FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of the processing of the mail clients 4, 5, and 6 when creating and transmitting a mail, and FIG.
5 is a schematic flowchart of the processing of the mail server 3.

First, a case will be described in which, for example, the user with the user identifier User0 uses the mail client 4 to view the mail list.

The user activates the mail client 4, and enters a user identifier User0 and a login password Pa.
The user inputs ssWord0 and issues a login request to the mail server 3 (FIG. 6, S1). When the mail server 3 receives the login request from the mail client 4,
The user information 8 checks whether or not the correspondence between the sent user identifier User0 and the login password PassWord0 is correct.
The corresponding mail address Address0 is returned to the requesting mail client 4 (FIG. 8, S21, S22, S
23).

When the mail address 4 is returned, the mail client 4 determines that the login has been successful, and issues a list information acquisition request to the mail server 3 (S2 in FIG. 6). Upon receiving the list information acquisition request, the mail server 3 refers to the user information 8 and the mail information 9 to edit the list information and upload it to the mail client 4 (FIG. 8, S21, S22, S24). Looking at the user information 8 in FIG. 3, User0 (mail address A
address0) two emails to the user
It can be seen that there is 0, Mail2. Regarding these emails, refer to the email information 9 and read the subject of each email,
4 (Tue) 13:00 from 13:00 "and get the" B meeting minutes ". The list information includes the sender's mail address and the presence / absence of a text. Whether the body of each mail is
It can be seen that the mail of 10 is “absent” and the mail of Mail 2 is “present”.

When the mail client 4 receives the list information, the mail client screen 31 as shown in FIG.
0 is displayed on the display (FIG. 6, S3). On the mail client screen 310, a “mail list” box 311, an “open” button 3 displaying the subject of the mail acquired as the list information, the sender's mail address, and the presence or absence of the body are displayed.
12, "Create mail" button 313, "End" button 3
There are fourteen. In this example, as shown in FIG. 5, “Mail List” box 311 contains Mail0, Mail
Theme 2 "Meeting A is the first meeting room from 13:00 on 8/4 (Tue.)"
“B meeting minutes”, presence / absence of text “absent” “present”, sender's e-mail address “Address2” “Address”
1 "is displayed.

Next, a case will be described in which the user with the user identifier User0 creates a mail and sends it using the mail client 4.

The user clicks a "create mail" button 313 with a mouse. Upon receiving this operation, the mail client 4 starts a mail creation process as shown in FIG. 5 (FIG. 6, S4, S5, S6).

First, a mail creation screen 3 as shown in FIG.
20 is opened (FIG. 7, S11). In the mail creation screen 320, a “subject” box 321 and a “delivery destination” box 32
2. "Body" box 323, "Call" button 324,
There is a “cancel” button 325.

On the mail creation screen 320, the user inputs the subject of the mail (“A meeting is absent” in this example) in the “subject” box 321, and enters one or more than one in the “delivery destination” box 322. A delivery destination mail address (Address1, Address2 in this example) is specified. In this example, nothing is entered in the “body” box 324.

After the information necessary for the mail is set in this way, when the user clicks a “send” button 326 on the mail creation screen 320, the mail client 4
A mail transmission request is sent to the mail server 3 and the subject, body and delivery mail address of the mail are uploaded to the mail server 3 (FIG. 7, S12, S13, S14), and when this is completed, the mail creation screen 320 is closed (FIG. 7). 7, S1
5), end the mail creation process. When the "cancel" button 325 is clicked, the mail server closes the mail creation screen without uploading and ends the processing (FIG. 7, S12, S13, S15).

When the mail server 3 receives the outgoing request from the mail client, the mail server 3 downloads the mail (S21, S22, S27 in FIG. 8), and after that, performs the distribution process (S28 in FIG. 8). In this distribution process, a new mail is additionally registered in the mail information 9 (the mail 3 part of the mail information 9 shown in FIG. 4 is added). At this time, the presence / absence of the text is also set (in this example, “None”
become). As shown in FIG. 3, the mail identifier column 104 corresponding to the mail addresses Address1 and Address2 of the user information 8 includes the mail identifier Mail.
Add 3.

To log out, the user clicks the "end" button 314 on the mail client screen 310. Then, the client 4 issues a logout request and closes the mail client screen (FIG. 6, S4,
S5, S8). Mail server 3 that received the logout request
Performs a logout process for the user (FIG. 8,
S21, S22, S26).

[0030]

According to the present invention, the presence / absence of a mail body can be checked on the list screen.
There is no need to open the text. As a result, the time for the mail user to browse the mail can be reduced. If there is no text,
Since the text is not directly referred to, there is an effect of reducing the load on the computer. Also, since more mails can be displayed on the list screen than in the prior art, there is an effect that mail processing becomes more efficient, such as reducing the trouble of scrolling the list screen.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration example of a computer used as a mail server and a mail client.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of user information held by a mail server.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of mail information held by a mail server.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen when a mail list is displayed on a mail client, and a mail is created and transmitted.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart showing overall processing in a mail client.

FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart showing a mail creation process in a mail client.

FIG. 8 is a schematic flowchart showing processing in the mail server.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... E-mail system, 2 ... Network, 3 ... Mail server (management apparatus), 4,5,6 ... Mail client (terminal), 7 ... Mail control mechanism,
8: user information, 9: mail information, 10: mail client organization, 11: user interaction control mechanism, 2
0: CPU, 21: Main memory, 22: File system,
26: input / output device, 101: user identifier, 10
2 ... Login password, 103 ... Email address,
104: mail identifier column, 201: mail identifier, 20
2 subject, 203 body text, 204 sender email address, 205 delivery destination email address,
206: presence / absence of text, 310: mail client screen, 320: mail creation screen.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a method for displaying a list of electronic mails including a subject and a body, information indicating presence / absence of a body is associated with the subject.
A method of displaying a list of e-mails, which is displayed on the same screen.