JP2001154948A - Electronic mail reception system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the need of instructing the acquisition of resources every time when a user reads mail by acquiring the resources on a network referred to in the mail in one reception processing. SOLUTION: The user instructs the start of an electronic mail reception processing in (S1) and normal electronic mail reception and preservation processings are performed in (S2). Then, a part (resource name) to be reference to other information (resource) on the network is extracted from all the received mail in (S3). After the extraction processing of the resource name on the network is ended, in (S4), downloading is performed based on an extracted result and a data base referable by the resource name on the network is prepared. At the point of time of ending data base preparation, the reception processing is ended (S5).

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 a method for receiving an electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, network technologies such as the Internet have become widespread, and WWW (World Wide Web), e-mail, net news, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) have been developed.
ol) Applications for exchanging information on a network, such as services, have become widespread. In electronic mail, as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-63590, HTM
In some cases, information on a network is easily accessed by receiving an e-mail with a WWW browsing application using L (Hyper Text Markup Language).

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-6305
By using the method of Japanese Patent Publication No. 90, the function equivalent to WWW can be obtained.
The operability is good because you can access information on the network referenced in the email,
In the case of this system, it is necessary to always connect to the network or to reconnect many times to get data only after giving an instruction to access information on the network. In an environment where the mobile phone is connected to a network, the burden of communication charges has increased. Also, even in an environment where you are always connected to the network, you will have to wait for the information referenced in the e-mail after reading the e-mail. This hindered smooth browsing of emails, including information on

[0004]

According to the present invention, while receiving a mail, a description that is a reference to other information in the mail is extracted, and after the mail is received, the mail is extracted based on the extraction result. Download all the information referred to in the database, save it in a database in a storage device so that it can be referenced when browsing the mail, finish the mail reception process, and when browsing the mail, download the information to other information in the mail. Extract the reference description, change the color, etc., and display the extracted part by e-mail so that the user can easily understand it,
When the user instructs to refer, the information provided in the database in the storage device is stored.

When a database is stored in the storage device, an extraction result of a portion which is a reference to other information is also stored at the same time, and the mail can be read without analyzing the mail again when reading the mail. Is possible.

When extracting a description that is a reference to the other information, for example, an HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer)
r Protocol) to extract only those that are downloaded.

[0007] The information referred to in the mail is downloaded, and the download is performed based on the setting of limiting the download time.

Alternatively, when downloading the information referred to in the mail, the download is performed based on the setting of limiting the data amount.

Alternatively, when downloading the information referred to in the mail, the download is performed based on the setting of limiting the number of data.

[0010] The description which is a reference to the other information is stored as a list, a process for prompting a user to select necessary information is performed, and reference information is also downloaded based on the user's selection.

The user's selection is stored as a history, and processing such as changing extraction conditions or rearranging the list of extraction results is performed based on the history, and the user is made to make a selection.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an example of a hardware configuration of an electronic mail receiving system according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a central processing controller (CPU). The whole mail receiving system in the present invention is controlled by various commands. Reference numeral 2 denotes a first memory, which stores a system program and an application program executed by the central processing control unit (CPU) 1 and various other data required by the program. This first memory is generally constituted by a ROM.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a second memory, which stores a work area required when the central processing control unit (CPU) 1 executes a system program and an application program, a storage area for data that needs to be temporarily stored, and the like. Have. This second memory is generally constituted by a RAM. 4 is a user I / F (interface) unit,
It is an I / F necessary for a user to operate the system, such as a CRT display, a liquid crystal panel, a keyboard, a mouse, and a touch panel. Reference numeral 5 denotes a network I / F (interface) unit, and devices such as a modem and a LAN card, each of which is suitable for a connection type to a network, are used.

Reference numeral 6 denotes an external auxiliary storage device. The external auxiliary storage device 6 is an external medium (not shown) such as a tape system such as a magnetic tape or a cassette tape, a magnetic disk system such as a floppy disk or a hard disk, or a CD-RO.
It is a device that can access a recording medium that can be separated from a main unit such as an optical disk system such as M, MO, MD, and DVD, and a card system such as an IC card and an optical card. It is assumed that application programs and data are stored in the external medium. Note that the recording medium may be a fixed carrier such as the above-described media, or a fluid carrier that is taken in from an external communication network via the network I / F unit. Good.

In the above description, the first memory 2 stores the R
Although described as OM, this may be a mask ROM, an EPROM, or a nonvolatile memory such as an electrically rewritable EEPROM or a flash ROM. Further, the system program, the application program, and various data required for other programs stored in the first memory 2 may be stored in advance.
Is an electrically rewritable memory, an application program or data is read from an external medium via the external auxiliary storage device 6 and the first program is read.
The storage method in the memory 2 may be used. At that time, the first
A program for downloading to the memory 2 is provided in advance.

Using the above-described function, an e-mail receiving process is performed according to the flow shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, first, in (S1), the user instructs the start of the e-mail receiving process. This is a result of a user's instruction on a schedule, such as receiving the instruction at regular intervals, even if it is a direct instruction. It does not matter. In this one-time receiving process, first, a normal e-mail receiving and storing process is performed in (S2). Next, from among all the emails received in (S3),
Extract a part (resource name) that is a reference to other information (resource) on the network. Information that can be referred to on this network is called a resource on the network. The extraction target (resource name) is, for example, a URL
(Uniform Resource Locate), which is a format for specifying resources on a network, defined in each network protocol, and described in accordance with these formats is hereinafter referred to as a resource name on the network. Resource names on the network can be easily extracted by pattern matching of text information. After the process of extracting the resource names on the network is completed (S4)
Download based on the extraction result in, and create a database that can be referenced by the resource name on the network. This database may use a database application, but it is sufficient if it can be uniquely referenced by a resource name on the network, so information is stored in a specific location on a storage device such as a memory using the resource name itself on the network as a file name. It can be realized just by saving. When the creation of the database is completed, the reception processing ends (S5).

Next, the processing at the time of browsing the e-mail shown in the flow of FIG. 3 is performed. First, in step (S11), a process of browsing one mail is started. Next, when displaying the mail selected by the user, after extracting the resource name on the network in (S12), the color, size, character type, etc. of only the resource name part are changed so that the extracted part can be seen. It is displayed (S13). When the user instructs access to the resource on the network in (S14), the data in the database on the storage device is provided to the user in (S15). Next, unless there is an instruction to end the browsing in (S16), the above-described browsing process is repeated. If there is an instruction to end the browsing, the browsing ends (S17).

(Second Embodiment) In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail must be extracted in both the e-mail receiving process and the display process for browsing the e-mail. There was no, but it is also possible to save the extraction result performed during the mail reception processing in the storage device and to be able to call up the extraction result when performing the mail display processing, so that the waste of the processing can be eliminated. It is. This corresponds to the processing of (S2) and (S3) in FIG.
As shown in (S20) of FIG. 4, and (S12) of FIG.
The processing in (S13) is performed by changing the processing in (S30) in FIG. The processing in FIGS. 4 and 5 other than the changed part is the same as the processing in each of FIGS. 2 and 3, and therefore only the changed part will be described.

In (S20) of FIG. 4, before storing the received mail in the storage device, the resource name on the network is extracted and converted to a specific character string. For example, if the resource name is http: // aa
If it is a.bbb.ccc / abc.txt, replace this with <linkhttp: /
/aaa.bbb.ccc/acb.txtlink>, etc. A method is conceivable in which the resource name is sandwiched between character strings that cannot be ordinary texts as much as possible, character codes for control, etc. If rules are created and converted in this way and stored in the storage device, the display processing when browsing the received mail as shown in (S30) of FIG. It is possible to recognize the resource name on the network in the form and reflect it on the display of mail.

Third Embodiment In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail are automatically extracted, and all the extracted resources are downloaded. In other words, in this case, there is no user operation during the mail receiving process, and the mail is completely automatically performed. However, depending on the user who receives a large amount of mail or depending on the configuration of the mail receiving system, the storage area for storing the mail and resources on the network may be used up during the receiving process. In some cases, it is required to additionally specify a resource name other than the resource name initially defined in the system. To address these situations, as shown in FIG.
After having the user set the extraction conditions for the resource name in advance,
The receiving process shown in FIG. 7 is performed.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a method of setting resource name extraction conditions. First, in (S41), resource name extraction condition setting processing is started, and then (S42).
Set the extraction conditions for the resource name. Here, the conditions to be set include, for example, a specification by a resource name, such as specifying a data type when the type of data can be distinguished by a resource name, a specification of a network protocol, and the like. . This is specified (S43)
To complete the setting of the resource name extraction condition.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining the procedure of the receiving process. This is a modification of (S3) of FIG. 2 shown in the first embodiment, and is changed to (S50) in FIG. Other procedures in FIG. 7 are the same as those in FIG. (S3) in FIG.
In, the resource name is first extracted from the mail using the resource name extraction condition defined in the system as it is, but in (S50) of FIG. 7, the resource name is first defined in the system. Extraction is performed using the resource name extraction condition set by the user in addition to the resource name extraction condition. The browsing can be performed by the method shown in FIG. 3 described in the first embodiment.

Fourth Embodiment In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail are automatically extracted, and all the extracted resources are downloaded. In other words, in this case, there is no user operation during the mail receiving process, and the mail is completely automatically performed. However, if the user receives a large amount of e-mails, it may take a very long time to download and a higher communication fee may be required. In order to cope with such a situation, as shown in FIG. 8, after setting by the user to limit the resource download time, FIG.
The receiving process shown in FIG.

First, in the resource download time limit setting method shown in FIG. 8, the resource download time limit setting process is started in (S61). next,
In (S62), the download time limit of the resource is set. The conditions to be set include, for example, a limitation on the download time for each data, a limitation on the total download time, and a limitation on the download time for each data type when the type of data is known from the resource name. can give. This setting is performed, and the resource download time limit setting is ended in (S63).

Next, the receiving process is performed according to the procedure shown in FIG.
This is different from (S4) in FIG. 2 described in the first embodiment, and is changed to (S70) in FIG. The other procedures in FIG. 9 are the same as those in FIG. In (S4) of FIG. 2, all of the extracted resources have been downloaded. However, in (S70) of FIG.
Download using the resource download time limit setting. The browsing is shown in FIG.
This can be done by the following method.

Fifth Embodiment In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail are automatically extracted, and all the extracted resources are downloaded. For this reason, there is a possibility that the storage area for storing the mail and the resources on the network is used up during the reception process. In order to cope with such a situation, as shown in FIG. 10, after setting by the user to limit the download size of the resource, the receiving process shown in FIG. 11 is performed.

First, in the resource download size limit setting method shown in FIG. 10, a resource download size limit setting process is started in (S81). Next, in (S82), the download size limit of the resource is set. The conditions to be set include, for example, a limit on the size of each data, a limit on the total download size, and a limit on the size of each data type when the type of data is known from the resource name. . This setting is performed, and the download size restriction setting of the resource is ended in (S83).

Next, the receiving process is performed according to the procedure shown in FIG. This is changed from (S4) in FIG. 2 described in the first embodiment, and is changed to (S90) in FIG. Other procedures in FIG. 11 are the same as those in FIG. (S4) in FIG.
In, all the extracted resources are downloaded, but in (S90) of FIG. 11, the download is performed using the setting of the resource download time limit set by the user. The browsing can be performed by the method shown in FIG. 3 described in the first embodiment.

(Embodiment 6) In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail are automatically extracted, and all the extracted resources are downloaded. For this reason, there is a possibility that the storage area for storing the mail and the resources on the network is used up during the reception process. In order to cope with such a situation, after setting by the user to limit the number of resources to be downloaded as shown in FIG.
3 is performed.

First, in the method of setting the number of resources to be downloaded shown in FIG. 12, the process of setting the number of resources to be downloaded is started in (S101). Next, in (S102), a limit on the number of resource downloads is set. The conditions to be set include, for example, a limit on the total number of downloads, and when the type of data is known from the resource name, a limit on the number of data for each type of data. This setting is performed, and the setting of the number of resources to be downloaded is ended in (S103).

Next, reception processing is performed according to the procedure shown in FIG. This is different from (S4) in FIG. 2 described in the first embodiment, and is changed to (S110) in FIG. The other procedures in FIG. 13 are the same as those in FIG. (S in FIG. 2)
In 4), all the extracted resources are downloaded, but in (S110) of FIG. 13, the download is performed using the setting of the number of resources to be downloaded set by the user. Example 1 for browsing
This can be performed by the method shown in FIG.

(Embodiment 7) In the first embodiment, the resource names on the network described in the mail are automatically extracted, and all the extracted resources are downloaded. For this reason, there is a possibility that the storage area for storing the mail and the resources on the network is used up during the reception process. In order to cope with such a situation, a reception process shown in FIG. 14 is performed.

In the receiving process in the procedure shown in FIG. 14, (S4) in FIG. 2 shown in the first embodiment is changed to (S120) in FIG. The other procedures in FIG. 14 are the same as those in FIG. In (S4) of FIG. 2, all the extracted resources have been downloaded.
In 4 (S120), the user selects necessary resources from the extracted resources and downloads them.
The browsing can be performed by the method shown in FIG. 3 described in the first embodiment.

(Embodiment 8) In the above-described embodiment 7, when the user selects a resource name, even if the resource name is downloaded once or is judged by the user to be unnecessary once, the user selects it again at the time of new reception processing. I was letting it. Since this is inefficient, the past selection results of the user are stored as a history, and when a new reception is performed, the past history is considered when presenting a list for selecting a resource name. This is shown in FIG. (S1)
2 to (S3) are the same processes as (S1) to (S3) in FIG. (S120) in FIG. 14 is replaced with (S1) in FIG.
31) to (S133). (S
When presenting the list of resource names extracted in 131) to the user, a process of referring to the past history and excluding resources downloaded in the past from the list is performed. Next, the download process of (S132) is performed.
This is the same processing as (S120). After the download is completed, the selection result of the current user is newly added to the history so far in (S133). This may be stored as a combination of the resource name, information indicating that the resource is selected or not selected, and the date and time of the processing. And
The receiving process ends at (S5). The browsing can be performed by the method shown in FIG. 3 described in the first embodiment.

[0034]

According to the above embodiment, it is possible to acquire the resources on the network referred to in the mail by one receiving process, and acquire the resources every time the user is reading the mail. There is no need to give instructions. Therefore, in an environment where the network is always connected, it is possible to reduce the user's waiting time when reading mail, and in an environment where the network is connected through a telephone line, the communication time and the network usage fee due to the reduction of the communication line are reduced. Can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail browsing process according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail browsing process according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a resource name extraction condition setting process according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a download time limit setting process according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a download size restriction setting process according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a download number limit setting process according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to a seventh embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of a mail receiving process according to an eighth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... CPU, 2 ... 1st memory, 3 ... 2nd memory, 4 ... User I / F (interface), 5 ... Network I
/ F (interface), 6: external auxiliary storage device.

Claims (8)

[Claims] In an electronic mail reception on the Internet or the like, a reference portion to other information on a network described in the received mail is automatically extracted in one reception process, and the automatically extracted reference The reference data for the part is downloaded to the storage device and the e-mail is received. When the e-mail is viewed, the reference part to other information on the network described in the e-mail is extracted, and the extraction result is obtained. By providing the downloaded information to the storage device when the user originally instructed access to the reference information, it is possible to browse including the reference information in the mail without requiring access to the network. An e-mail receiving system, comprising: 2. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein a result of automatically extracting a reference portion to other information on the network is stored in a storage device, and it is not necessary to re-extract when browsing the mail. An e-mail receiving system. 3. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein a user can set a condition for extracting a reference portion described in the mail to other information on the network. Receiving system. 4. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein the time limit can be imposed on the download of the data of the reference destination referred to in the received mail to the storage device. Email receiving system. 5. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein download of reference data referred to in the received mail to a storage device can be restricted by a data size. Email receiving system. 6. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein download of reference data referred to in the received mail to the storage device can be restricted by the number of data. Email receiving system. 7. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 1, wherein the user can select and download the data of the reference destination referred to in the received mail. 8. The electronic mail receiving system according to claim 7, wherein a history of the selection of the reference information by the user is stored, and when the reference information is extracted next time, the user can use the stored history to save the history. An e-mail receiving system, which is capable of increasing the efficiency of selection.