JP2000122838A - Electronic mail display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve handleability when an electronic mail is viewed. SOLUTION: Each character data constituting the text of an electronic mail to be displayed is retrieved, whether or not a delimiter such as '=', '-' and '*'continue the head of a line to the end of it is discriminated (SA3 to SA6), if the line on which they continue exists (YES in SA6), it is decided that the line is a line representing a delimiter line, the line position is associated with the kinds of graphic lines such as a doublet, a broken line and a thick line that correspond to the continuing character and is stored in a RAM (SA7). When the retrieval of character data to all lines is finished (YES in SA8), the delimiters of the stored line are eliminated based on the stored data in the RAM, a graphic line corresponding to the kind of the delimiter line is shown just below the preceding line (SA10), and a display area is compressed vertically. Consequently, information quantity that can be confirmed on a display screen at a time is increased.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an electronic mail display device such as a PHS terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the spread of personal computers, the use of e-mail using the Internet and various information communication services has been increasing irrespective of general households and offices such as companies. Reflecting this situation, an increasing number of portable information terminals such as PHS terminals are provided with functions capable of sending and receiving and displaying electronic mails alone.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION However, PHS
Liquid crystal display device (LC
In the case of D), the number of lines and the number of characters when displaying the e-mail (the body of the e-mail) are small because the display screen is extremely small as compared with the monitor of the personal computer. That is, since the amount of information that can be displayed at one time is small, for example, the display screen has to be scrolled many times, and the usability when viewing e-mail has not been satisfactory.

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of such a conventional problem, and has as its object to provide an e-mail display device that improves usability when viewing e-mail.

[0005]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of character data constituting an electronic mail are converted into predetermined image data corresponding to the character data. With the conversion stage and this conversion stage,
Display means for displaying an e-mail in which the plurality of character data has been converted to the predetermined image data. In this configuration, when the electronic mail is displayed on the display unit by converting some or all of the character data constituting the electronic mail into image data by the conversion unit, information having the same content as the character data before conversion is displayed. Can be displayed in a display area having a smaller area than when only character data is displayed.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a storage means for storing an electronic mail, and the conversion stage is configured to display the electronic mail on the display means in response to a display operation for displaying the electronic mail.
A plurality of character data constituting the e-mail stored in the storage means is converted into predetermined image data corresponding to the character data, and is displayed on the display means. In such a configuration, part or all of the character data of the e-mail stored in the storage unit is converted into image data only when displayed on the display unit.

Further, in the invention of claim 3, the plurality of character data indicate a dividing line composed of a plurality of identical characters. In such a configuration, when displaying an e-mail, the length of a sentence including a character indicating a separator line is unconditionally set when the separator line is a horizontal line, and when the separator line is a vertical line. By reducing, the display area on the screen can be compressed in the vertical direction.

Further, in the invention of claim 4, the plurality of character data indicate a predetermined character string. In such a configuration, the display area on the screen can be compressed in the vertical direction by reducing the length of the sentence including the predetermined character string.

Further, in the invention of claim 5, the predetermined character string is a character string that forms the end of a sentence. In such a configuration, the character strings that form the end of a sentence are typological, and the number of character strings with a high frequency of appearance is small, so by setting a character string with a high frequency of appearance as a predetermined character string, You can increase the number of sentences whose length decreases.

In the invention according to claim 6, the predetermined character string constitutes a face character. Also in such a configuration, the number of sentences whose length decreases can be increased.

Further, in the invention according to claim 7, the predetermined image data includes font data indicating an abbreviated character or the like representing the predetermined character string by one character.
Also in such a configuration, the number of sentences whose length decreases can be increased.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a PHS terminal according to the first embodiment of the present invention. This PHS
The terminal includes an antenna 1, a radio unit 2, an audio conversion circuit unit 3, a speaker 4, a microphone 5, a control unit 6, a ROM 7, a RAM 8,
A clock section 9, a key input section 10, a ringer speaker 11, a liquid crystal display section 12, a mail storage memory 13, a conversion data memory 14, and the like are provided. The antenna 1 transmits / receives a transmission signal and a reception signal including a control signal and a voice signal in a predetermined frequency band to and from a public base station (CS) (not shown) or a self-operating base station installed in a home or the like. Then, transmission of the transmission signal from the radio unit 2 and output of the reception signal to the radio unit 2 are performed. The radio unit 2 converts the transmission data input from the voice conversion circuit 3 into a transmission signal of a predetermined radio frequency for wireless transmission to a public base station or a private base station and transmits the transmission signal from the antenna 1, The received signal is frequency-converted and output to the audio conversion circuit unit 3.

Although not shown, the voice conversion circuit unit 3 includes a modem unit, a codec unit, a TDMA processing unit, and the like. The codec unit and the TDMA processing unit expand the ADPCM audio data transmitted from the TDMA processing unit by decoding the PCM audio signal on the receiving side of the codec unit, and perform analog / digital conversion processing of the audio signal by the PCM. And the volume, ringing tone, tone signal, and the like are controlled and output from the speaker 4. Further, the codec unit compresses the audio signal input from the microphone 5 on the transmission side and converted into a PCM audio signal by encoding it into ADPCM audio data, and outputs it to the TDMA processing unit.

The TDMA processing unit uses the TDMA method,
While extracting the physical slot on the predetermined carrier sent from the modem unit and outputting control information and voice information,
It has a protocol formatter that creates a physical slot by adding control information to the voice information from the codec unit and outputs it to the modem unit in a predetermined time slot, and performs wireless communication with public base stations and private base stations. Execute the communication control sequence based on the protocol. Also, the CS-ID and area number sent from the public base station or the private base station are sequentially acquired and sent to the control unit 6, and the telephone number and the name of the other party acquired from the call setting message at the time of the call setting accompanying the incoming call are set. Send to control unit 6.

The clock section 9 has a timer function and a calendar function.
The time data is output to the control unit 6. The key input unit 10
A function key for switching various operation modes such as a ten key, a hold key, a call key, and an automatic download mode is provided. The liquid crystal display unit 12 is configured by a liquid crystal display (LCD), and displays the telephone number of the communication partner input from the key input unit 10 and various information such as e-mail stored in the mail storage memory 13. indicate. The control unit 6 includes a CPU and the like, and has a ROM
7, a communication control process in accordance with the communication processing program stored therein, and a display process such as an e-mail. In addition, it controls the operation of each of the above-mentioned units, and controls the ringer speaker 11 to notify a ringer signal when a call is received. RAM
Reference numeral 8 temporarily stores various data when each processing program of the control unit 6 is executed.

The mail storage memory 13 stores received e-mails, transmitted e-mails, and e-mails whose transmission has been suspended, and includes a plurality of e-mails for individually storing the e-mails. A memory area is allocated. The conversion data memory 14 stores the target character data a constituting the conversion table T1 as shown in FIG.
1 to a3 and corresponding conversion line type data b1 to b3
Are stored, and each data is referred to at the time of electronic mail display processing. In the present embodiment,
Equal (=), minus (-), and asterisk (*) are used as the target character data a1 to a3, that is, delimiters generally used to represent a delimiter in the body of an e-mail. Conversion line type data b1 to b
Although three types of graphic lines, that is, a double line, a broken line, and a thick line, are stored as 3, these types may be increased or decreased as needed. Further, the mail storage memory 13 and the conversion data memory 14 are designed to protect the stored data even when the power switch is off.

Next, in the present embodiment having the above-described configuration, an operation relating to the mail display processing by the control unit 6 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Note that the following operation is performed when the body of an electronic mail (for example, received mail) stored in the mail storage memory 13 is displayed using a conventional device, as in the first screen G1 shown in FIG. When the sentence is composed of 24 lines, this is an operation for displaying this as a 17-line sentence such as the second screen G2 shown in FIG.

That is, the control section 6 starts the operation in response to a predetermined key operation for displaying the mail by the user, and first searches for a default beginning of the first line (step SA1). ). Subsequently, it is determined whether or not the search position is the data end, that is, whether or not the data at the search position is code data indicating the data end (step SA2). Such a determination result is NO, and the character data at the search position is continuously stored in the conversion table T in FIG.
It is determined whether or not the character is a delimiter character constituting 1 (step SA3). At this time, the first character of the first line is “S
object ", the process advances to step SA8 to determine whether or not the search position at that time is the last line of the text. Here, since the search position is the first line, the process proceeds to step SA9, where the line position is updated (incremented).
It returns to step SA1.

Thereafter, the line position is the second line (FIG. 4). Since the character at the beginning of the line is "=", that is, a delimiter, the subsequent step SA2 is NO and the step SA2 is not.
3 is YES, the pointer is updated, that is, the search position is incremented to be the next search position (step SA
4) Further, it is determined whether or not the character at the search position is the same character (step SA5). Here, since "=" continues, the process returns to step SA4 again. Then, if the continuation of the same character is interrupted while repeating steps SA4 and SA5 and the determination result of step SA5 becomes NO,
It is determined whether or not the last position of the character string consisting of the same character is the end of the line (step SA6). At this time, in the second line (in FIG. 4), “=” continues to the end of the line, and the result of the determination is YES. Therefore, it is determined that the line is a line representing a delimiter character line, and the line The position and the type of graphic line (here, “double line”) corresponding to the continuous character (here, “=”) are stored in the RAM 8 in association with each other (step SA7).

Then, after updating the row position again (step SA9), the process returns to step SA1 and repeats the above-described processing. Along with this, each row position indicated by in FIG. 4 and the type of graphic line at each row position are stored in the RAM 8 in a corresponding manner. That is, the row position of, is stored as a broken line, the row position of is a double line, and the row position of is stored as a thick line. While the above-described processing is repeated, for example, if the character at the beginning of the line is not a delimiter as in the third line (NO in step SA3), and although not shown in the example shown in FIG. Even if it is a delimiter, if it does not continue to the end of the line (step SA
(NO in 6), the process proceeds to step SA8.

Thereafter, the above-described processing is performed up to the last line, and the result of determination in step SA8 is YES, or code data indicating that line feed data exists at the end of the sentence and the beginning of the last line indicates data end. (Step S
(YES in A2), based on the data stored in the RAM 8 in step SA7, convert the character string of each line determined to be a line representing a delimiter character line in the body of the mail into a graphic line of a corresponding type, Is displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 12 (step SA10). That is, as in the second screen G2 shown in FIG. 5, in a line that is not determined as a delimiter character line, a character string based on stored character data is displayed as it is, and at the same time, it is determined as a delimiter character line. The character string on the line is not displayed, and a graphic line corresponding to the type of the delimiter character line is displayed immediately below the preceding line. Then, the mail display processing ends.

Here, comparing the first screen G1 (FIG. 4) and the second screen G2 (FIG. 5), in the former, consecutive delimiters ("=", "-", "*") There are 7 lines (each line of 各) consisting of a delimiter character line consisting of, and they occupy nearly 30% of the total of 24 lines. On the other hand, in the latter, each of the delimiter character lines is converted into a double line, a dashed line, and a bold line of a graphic line. When a character font is represented by, for example, 16 dots vertically, the graphic line is 3 to 5 dots vertically. Can be represented. Therefore, it is possible to narrow the display area by about 10 dots vertically in each of the seven rows (each row of). Therefore, the display area A of the mail text on the first screen G1 (FIG. 4)
In the second screen G2 (FIG. 5), the display area B is narrow in the vertical direction.
It can be. In other words, by compressing the display area vertically, it is possible to increase the amount of information that can be checked at a time on the display screen without changing the contents of the mail body and without performing scroll display. Is easy to use.

Although the present embodiment has been described with reference to the case where a horizontal delimiter character line is converted into a graphic line, the text may include "|"
If there is a delimiter character line in which delimiters such as “*” and “+” exist at the same character position, that is, a vertical line, such a vertical line may be converted into a graphic line.
In that case, the display area in the horizontal direction for displaying the vertical line can be narrowed.If there are multiple delimiters that represent the vertical line on the same line, the number of characters that can be displayed on that line is substantially increased. Become. Therefore, for example, when a period (".") And a line feed are located at the beginning of a line, they are displayed on the line immediately before, so that the number of display lines of the text can be reduced. This also increases the amount of information that can be checked at a time on the display screen without performing scroll display.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. That is, in the present embodiment, in the PHS terminal having the same configuration as that shown in FIG. 1, the conversion data memory 14 stores the conversion table T2 as shown in FIG.
, Character data d1 to d4 of the converted image corresponding thereto, and converted image data e
1 to e4 are stored, and the control unit 6 performs an electronic mail display process using these data. In the present embodiment, the target character string data c1 to c4 are four types of character strings, ".", "", "", "". A character string composed of a tail word and a punctuation which is frequently used in the body of an electronic mail is stored. Note that the target character string may be a character string including a tail word and a period (“.”). Further, as the converted image data e1 to e4 corresponding to the target character string data c1 to c4, data representing each of the above character strings in a display area for one character is stored. The types of the target character string data c1 to c3 and the like may be increased or decreased as necessary.

Hereinafter, the controller 6 according to the present embodiment will be described.
The operation relating to the mail display process according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The following operation is performed as shown in a third screen G3 shown in FIG. 8 when the text of the electronic mail (for example, received mail) stored in the mail storage memory 13 is displayed using a conventional device. When the sentence is composed of 10 lines, the sentence is displayed on the sixth screen G4 shown in FIG.
This is the operation when displaying as a line sentence.

That is, the control section 6 starts operation in response to a predetermined key operation for displaying the mail by the user, and first searches for a line end of the first line which is a default (step SB1). ). Subsequently, it is determined whether or not the character at the end of the line is a period (".") (Step SB2). At this time, as shown in FIG. 8, since the character at the end of the first line is "meeting" of "welcome party", the process proceeds to step SB5 to determine whether the search position at that time is the last line of the text. I do. Here, since the search position is the first line, the process proceeds to step SB6, where the line position is updated (incremented), the process returns to step SB1, and the above process is repeated. Thereafter, when the line position becomes the third line, the character at the end of the line is a punctuation mark, so that the determination result of step SB2 is YES.
And the last word preceding the punctuation is
It is determined whether or not the target character string constitutes the conversion table T2 (step SB3). First, the four-character string preceding the punctuation marks is the target character string c2 to c.
4 or not, and if none of the above, the determination is made by determining whether the three-character string preceding the punctuation corresponds to the target character string c1. In other words, the judgment is made in such a way that "I" of the target character string c2 is prioritized over "I" of the target character string c1.

At this time, in the third line, the last word preceding the punctuation mark is "was" and the result of the determination in step SB3 is YES. Therefore, in the next step SB4, the head position data of the last word, that is, the first character The position, the line position, and the type data (c3) to which the last word corresponds are stored in the RAM 8 in association with each other (step SB4). Then, after the line position is updated again after step SB5 (step SB6), the process returns to step SB1 and repeats the above-described processing. Accompanying this, the RAM 8 stores the head position data and the type data of the last word related to the end of the four sentences in the text of FIG. During the above-described processing, if any of the lines does not have a period at the end of the line (NO in step SB2), if the last word preceding the period is not the target character string (NO in step SB3), Proceed to step SB5.

Thereafter, the above-described processing is performed up to the last line, and if the decision result in the step SB5 is YES, based on the data stored in the RAM 8 in the step SB4, using the conversion table T2, And the punctuation mark (such as "was.") Are converted to the corresponding converted image (e1).
To e4), and the body of the mail is displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 12 (step SA10). That is, as in the fourth screen G4 shown in FIG. 9, a text in which the predetermined tail word is deleted and the converted images d1 to d4 are inserted at the head position of the tail word is displayed. Then, the mail display processing ends.

Therefore, as is apparent from the third screen G3 (FIG. 8) and the fourth screen G4 (FIG. 9), the length of the sentence including the end word determined in advance is reduced. 10
A text consisting of lines is displayed in six lines. As a result, as in the first embodiment, by compressing the display area of the body in the vertical direction, information that can be checked at once on the display screen without changing the contents of the mail body and without performing scroll display Because the volume can be increased, it is easy to use when viewing e-mail.

In this embodiment, the last word and the punctuation mark (such as "was.") Are treated as one set of character strings, and converted into corresponding converted images e1 to e4 and displayed. Only the word may be converted into a corresponding converted image and displayed. Also, the converted images e1 to e4
Is displayed in the display area for one character, but may be displayed in the display area for a plurality of characters such as two characters. Further, the display area is changed according to the type of the last word. A plurality of different converted images may be prepared.

In place of the last word and the punctuation, a character string constituting a so-called emoticon (face mark) may be converted into a corresponding converted image and displayed. In this case, the conversion data memory 14 stores target character string data f1 to f4 constituting a conversion table T3 as shown in FIG. 10, for example, and corresponding type data g1 to g4,
The image data h1 to h4 are stored. Then, although not shown in the flowchart, the target character strings (f1 to f4) are searched in the text before displaying the e-mail,
If the search is successful, the position information (line position and character position) is associated with the type data (g1 to g4) in the RAM.
8, based on the stored position information and the like, using the conversion table T3 to convert only the emoticon portions into the converted images h1 to h1.
The control unit 6 causes the control unit 6 to perform a mail display process to be displayed as h4. In this case, the same effect as in the present embodiment can be obtained. Further, in the mail display processing, for example, when there is only one (or one type) of the emoticon in the text, the emoticon is deleted from the text and the converted image of the type corresponding to the emoticon is deleted. h1
h4 may be enlarged and displayed in the background on the screen.

In the above-described mail display processing,
Character strings in which abbreviated characters, unit characters, pictographs, and the like are prepared and character codes are already assigned and character codes are already assigned, for example, “(share)”, “(Yes)”,
When character strings such as "meter" and "percent" are present, the character string data may be converted to font data such as the above-mentioned abbreviated characters, which is a type of image data, and the abbreviated characters and the like may be displayed. Good.

On the other hand, in the first and second embodiments described above, at the time of displaying the e-mail stored in the mail storage memory 13, a predetermined character string in the text is searched, In the above description, a predetermined character string searched is converted into a graphic line or an image. Alternatively, for example, when a received e-mail is stored in the mail storage memory 13, predetermined character string data is deleted in advance. At the same time, code data or the like indicating image data to be displayed may be inserted in that location, and at the time of display, a graphic line or the like may be displayed in the text based on such code data. In this case, since the data size of the e-mail can be reduced, the number of mails that can be stored in the mail storage memory 13 can be increased. Although the data size of the e-mail becomes large, the image data corresponding to the character string data may be left as it is at the position where the predetermined character string data is deleted. Further, in the case where a predetermined character string is converted into a graphic line or an image at the time of displaying an electronic mail as in the present embodiment, the received mail stored in the mail storage memory 13 is replaced with, for example, the function described above. When forwarding the data to another PHS terminal or the like that does not have the data, the data can be used as it is, which is convenient.

Also, a case has been described in which only a predetermined specific character string present in the body of an e-mail is converted into a graphic line or image, but the control unit 6 has a high image processing capability. In such a case, all of the character strings constituting the body may be converted into an image and displayed. In addition, PH as a mail display device of the present invention
Although the S terminal is shown, the same effect can be obtained by adopting the present invention in another device having an e-mail display function in addition to this. In particular, in portable information terminals having a small display screen (the number of display lines is small), the effect is large.

[0035]

As described above, in the present invention,
When an electronic mail is displayed on the display means, the same information can be displayed in a display area having a smaller area than when displaying only the character data. Therefore, the amount of information that can be displayed on the display means at one time can be increased, and usability when viewing an e-mail can be improved. In addition, if only part of or all of the character data is converted to image data only when the e-mail stored in the storage means is displayed on the display means, the received e-mail can be forwarded to another. In this case, the e-mail can be sent as it is, so that the convenience of using the received e-mail can be ensured.

Even when only predetermined character data is converted into image data, the predetermined character data may be replaced with a plurality of character data indicating a dividing line or a character string constituting the end of a sentence or a face character. Then, when displaying an e-mail, the display area on the screen can be compressed in the vertical direction, and as a result, the amount of information that can be displayed on the display means at one time can be increased. Therefore, it is possible to improve the usability when viewing an e-mail without securing a high image processing function.

[0037]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a PHS terminal according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing data stored in a conversion data memory in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a mail display processing procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory screen showing an example of a text of an electronic mail stored in a mail storage memory.

FIG. 5 is a screen displayed by the mail display process and corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing data stored in a conversion data memory according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a mail display processing procedure in the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory screen showing an example of a text of an electronic mail stored in a mail storage memory.

FIG. 9 is a screen displayed by the mail display process and corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram showing data stored in a conversion data memory according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 6 control unit 7 ROM 8 RAM 12 liquid crystal display unit 13 mail storage memory 14 conversion data memory T1 to T3 conversion table

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04L 12/54 H04L 11/20 101B 12/58 F-term (Reference) 5B069 AA20 BA04 BC02 HA02 HA20 LA05 5B089 GA25 GB03 HA13 JA31 JB01 KA04 KC27 KC44 KD01 KH02 LA11 LB14 5C082 BA02 BB01 BB32 BD02 CB01 DA12 DA32 DA87 MM09 5K030 GA18 HA06 JL01 JT01 JT09 LB16

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A conversion output stage for converting a plurality of character data constituting an electronic mail into predetermined image data corresponding to the character data, and the conversion output stage converts the plurality of character data into the predetermined image data. A display unit for displaying the e-mail converted into the data. 2. A storage device for storing an electronic mail,
The conversion output stage converts a plurality of character data constituting the e-mail stored in the storage means into predetermined image data corresponding to the character data in response to a display operation for displaying the e-mail on the display means. 2. The electronic mail display device according to claim 1, wherein said electronic mail display device converts the electronic mail into an electronic mail. 3. The electronic mail display device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of character data indicate a dividing line composed of a plurality of identical characters. 4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of character data indicate a predetermined character string.
The electronic mail display device according to the above. 5. The electronic mail display device according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined character string is a character string that forms the end of a sentence. 6. The electronic mail display device according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined character string forms a face character. 7. The electronic mail display device according to claim 4, wherein the predetermined image data includes font data indicating an abbreviated character representing the predetermined character string by one character.