JP2002359667A - Mobile phone with mail transmission/reception function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To quickly confirm contents of desired mail among pieces of transmitted or received mail in a mobile phone capable of mail transmission/reception. SOLUTION: The mobile phone is provided with a memory 8 that stores the pieces of transmitted or received mail and a control circuit 5 that carries out mail management procedures. The control circuit 5 carries out a procedure that retrieves mail with an address whose initial letter is assigned to any of characters of each operation key 7 from the memory 8, a procedure that displays the presence of mail by each operation key 7 on a display device 6, a procedure that lists up addresses of mail whose initial letters are respectively assigned to the operation keys 7 when a user operates the operation keys 7, and a procedure that displays contents of mail with a selected address in accordance with the user operation selecting one address among the listed up addresses.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable telephone having a display and a plurality of operation keys, capable of inputting characters, and capable of transmitting and receiving mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a portable telephone, as shown in FIG. 2, ten operation keys for inputting numbers from 0 to 9 are used.
One or a plurality of hiragana and a plurality of romaji are assigned to each of (7), and the hiragana or romaji can be input by operating these operation keys (7).
Thus, the created mail can be transmitted or received.

[0003] In addition, sent and received mails are
The contents can be stored in an internal memory, and the contents of the mail can be confirmed after transmission or reception. In this case, the user performs a predetermined key operation to first display a list of the addresses of the transmitted mail or the received mail, and further selects one of the addresses to display the contents of the mail of the address. Can be done.

[0004]

However, in the conventional portable telephone, when it is desired to confirm the contents of a desired mail from the transmitted or received mail, the cursor is sequentially moved by repeating the key operation. Since it is necessary to perform an operation of displaying the contents of each e-mail while moving to the address of each e-mail, there has been a problem that the operation is complicated and takes time, especially when the number of e-mails is large.

An object of the present invention is to provide a portable telephone capable of easily and promptly confirming the contents of a desired mail from transmitted or received mail.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided a portable telephone having a mail transmission / reception function, comprising: memory means for storing transmitted and / or received mails together with addresses; and each operation key corresponding to a predetermined operation by a user. First control means for searching the memory means for a mail having an address having a character assigned to (7) as a leading character, and displaying the presence of the mail on the display (6) for each operation key (7); In response to the operation of one operation key (7), the operation key (7)
A second control means for displaying a list of addresses (or titles or sender names) of the respective mails on the display (6) with respect to the mail whose address is the character assigned to the first character, In response to a user operation of selecting one address (or title or sender name) from among the title or sender name), the contents of the mail at the selected address (or title or sender name) are displayed (6). 3)
Control means.

In the portable telephone of the present invention, each time a mail is transmitted or received, the address and the contents of the mail are stored in the memory means. Thereafter, when confirming the contents of the mail, the user performs a predetermined operation such as operating a mail key. According to this operation, each operation key
A mail having an address whose first character is the character assigned to (7) is searched, and the presence of the mail is displayed on the display (6) for each operation key (7). Therefore, the user grasps the first character of the address from a memory or a memo of the address of the other party whose mail content is not to be confirmed, and operates one operation key (7) to which the character is assigned.
Operate. In response to this operation, a list of the addresses of the respective e-mails whose addresses have the character assigned to the operation key (7) as the first character is displayed on the display (6). Therefore, the user selects an e-mail address whose contents are not to be confirmed from the addresses displayed in the list. As a result, the contents of the mail of the selected address are displayed on the display (6).

In a specific configuration, the memory means stores the transmitted mail and the received mail separately, and the first control means stores the transmitted mail or the received mail in accordance with a user's operation of selecting the transmitted mail or the received mail. The search is executed for one of the objects. This narrows down the search targets and shortens the search time.

In a specific configuration, the first control means displays the number of mails for each operation key (7), thereby displaying the presence of the mail retrieved from the memory means. The total number of mails and the number of unread mails are displayed for each operation key (7). by this,
The number of unread mails can be known for each operation key (7), and can be used as a reference when selecting one operation key (7) to be operated.

[0010] In another specific configuration, the second control means displays, for the received mail, a list of the addresses of each mail together with a distinction between read / unread. This makes it easy to select a mail whose content is not to be confirmed.

[0011]

According to the portable telephone having the mail transmission / reception function according to the present invention, a plurality of transmitted or received mails are classified by operation key according to the first character of each address, and are listed on the display. So
By operating the operation key on which the desired mail whose contents are not to be confirmed is classified, the mail can be easily and quickly selected and the contents can be confirmed.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings. As shown in FIG. 2, the mobile phone according to the present invention includes a casing (11) provided with an antenna (1) protruding therefrom, and a display (6) and a plurality of operation keys (7) are provided on the surface of the casing (11). ), A speaker (9) is provided at the upper end of the casing (11), and a microphone (10) is provided at the lower end. One or more hiragana characters and a plurality of Roman characters are assigned to each of the ten operation keys (7) for inputting numbers from 0 to 9, and operation of these operation keys (7) is performed. Allows input of Hiragana or Roman characters.

FIG. 1 shows a device configuration of the portable telephone according to the present invention. As shown in the figure, a receiving circuit (3) and a transmitting circuit (4) are connected in parallel to the duplexer (2), and a signal received by the antenna (1) passes through the duplexer (2). 3) and the received voice signal is demodulated. The received voice signal is supplied to a control circuit (5).
Is supplied to the loudspeaker (9) and is emitted. The transmitted voice signal input to the microphone (10) is transmitted to the control circuit.
The signal is supplied to the transmission circuit (4) via (5) and undergoes modulation. The modulated transmission voice signal is transmitted from the antenna (1) via the duplexer (2).

A display (6) and a plurality of operation keys (7) are connected to the control circuit (5), and a text created by operating the operation keys (7) is transmitted as electronic mail to the other party. It is also possible to receive an e-mail sent from the other party. Further, the control circuit (5) has a memory (8).
Is connected, and the memory (8) stores a telephone number, mail text, and the like. The received mail, the transmitted mail, and the deleted mail are stored in the memory (8) while being distinguished from each other.

FIG. 3 shows a mail management table provided in the memory (8).
The address, the distinction of received (unread or read) / transmitted / deleted, and the number (key number) that can be input by the operation key to which the first character of the address is assigned are stored.

FIG. 4 shows a control circuit in a mail confirmation mode for retrieving one desired mail from a plurality of mails stored in the memory (8) and confirming the contents thereof.
(5) represents the procedure to be executed. The mail confirmation mode is started by operating a mail key. First, in step S1, it is determined whether or not the mail key has been pressed.
The process proceeds to step 2 to display a box selection screen as shown in FIG. On the box selection screen,
The inbox storing the received mail, the outbox storing the outgoing mail, and the deleted box storing the deleted mail are displayed. In response, the user performs an operation of selecting one box.

Next, in step S3, it is determined whether or not one box is selected. When the determination is affirmative, in step S4, the number of mails stored in the selected box is determined by the key number (0). -9)
For example, in the case of a reception box, a mail number display screen as shown in FIG. 5B is displayed. On the mail number display screen, “number of new mails / number of stored mails” is displayed for each key number (0 to 9). On this screen, the user performs an operation of selecting one key number based on the storage or memo of the mail address of the other party whose mail content is not to be confirmed.

Subsequently, in step S5 of FIG. 4, it is determined whether or not one key number has been selected. When the determination is affirmative, in step S6, the mail assigned to the selected key number is transmitted. Search and display the address of the found mail with read / unread distinction (6)
In the list. For example, when the key number “5” is selected, “5”, “j”, “k”, “l”, “J”, “K”, or “L” assigned to the operation key of the key number A search is made for a mail having an address starting with ".", And a list of the searched mail addresses is displayed on the display (6) together with a read / unread mark as shown in FIG. 5 (c). In response, the user will be asked to confirm the content
Perform the operation to select (address).

Thereafter, in step S7 of FIG. 4, it is determined whether or not one mail has been selected. Read and display
Displayed in (6). Finally, in step S9, it is determined whether or not the user has performed an operation to continue the mail confirmation. When the determination is yes, the process returns to step S1.
The procedure of searching and confirming the mail is repeated, and when the judgment is NO, the procedure is terminated.

According to the portable telephone of the present invention, a plurality of e-mails transmitted, received or deleted are classified by operation key according to the first character of each address and are displayed in a list on the display. By operating the operation key to which the mail whose contents are not to be confirmed is classified, the mail can be easily and quickly selected and the contents can be confirmed.

The configuration of each part of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications can be made within the technical scope described in the claims. For example, in the list display screen shown in FIG. 5C, the address of the searched mail is displayed. However, the present invention is not limited to this. It is also possible to display a list of the title of the mail or the name of the sender. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a mobile phone according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the mobile phone.

FIG. 3 is a table showing a mail management table provided in a memory.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a mail search / confirmation procedure executed by the control circuit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a screen display example in a mail confirmation mode.

[Explanation of symbols]

 (11) Casing (5) Control circuit (6) Display (7) Operation keys (8) Memory

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5K027 AA11 BB02 CC08 FF22 MM17 5K067 AA34 BB04 DD53 FF23 FF31 GG11 HH23

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A display (6) and a plurality of operation keys (7).
Each operation key (7) is assigned one number and at least one hiragana and / or romaji. Characters can be input by operating these operation keys (7), and mail can be transmitted and received. A memory means for storing transmitted and / or received e-mails together with an address, and an address having a character assigned to each operation key (7) as a first character in accordance with a predetermined operation by a user. The first control means for retrieving the e-mail from the memory means and displaying the presence of the e-mail on the display (6) for each operation key (7); The second system displays a list of addresses, titles, or sender names of each mail on the display (6) for the mail whose address is the first character of the character assigned to the key (7). A mail of the selected address, title, or sender name in response to a user operation of selecting one address, title, or sender name from the listed addresses, titles, or sender names. And a third control means for displaying the contents of the message on a display (6). 2. The mobile phone according to claim 1, wherein the memory means stores the transmitted mail and the received mail separately. 3. The mobile phone according to claim 2, wherein the first control means executes the search for either one of the outgoing mail and the received mail according to a user's operation of selecting outgoing mail / received mail. . 4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first control means displays the number of mails for each operation key, thereby displaying the presence of the mail searched from the memory means. Mobile phone. 5. The mobile phone according to claim 4, wherein the first control means displays the total number of mails and the number of unread mails for each operation key of the received mail. 6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the second control means displays, for the received mail, a list of addresses, titles, or sender names of each mail, with a distinction between read / unread.
A mobile phone according to claim 1.