JP2005228255A - System and method for processing message - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a user not only to read out receiving mail in each content of conversation or discussion but also to advance the readout of the conversation or discussion in order or instruct whether the following conversation should be received or not after reading the initial sentence of the conversation. <P>SOLUTION: A mail sorting part 14 sorts received mails into groups by using at least one of information related to the replay relation of each mail, information concerned with the quoting relation of the mail and the preparation date of the mail. A mail unread information recording part 13 records unread information indicating whether mail stored in a mail storage part 12 has been already read or not. An intra-group mail upstream/downstream determination part 15 determines the upstream/downstream relation of a conversation flow about a plurality of pieces of mail in the same group. A message display part 16 displays an unread message located on the most upstream position of the conversation flow out of unread messages belonging to each group in accordance with the determination result in each group. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a system for processing messages such as electronic mail and communityware, and more particularly to a message processing system for a plurality of users to exchange messages with each other.

  In recent years, message exchanges on computer networks such as the Internet have been actively performed. Currently, electronic mail (hereinafter simply referred to as mail) is the most common message exchange means. Emails are not only used for personal communication, but there is also a “mailing list” mechanism for exchanging information in groups, and the amount of emails that users receive per day is increasing.

  For this reason, it has become difficult to read all received mails, and some sort or prioritization is required. For example, screening to prevent receiving emails that are not of interest to you, such as junk emails, or displaying urgent request emails on the job with the highest priority, or emails that will be sent for reference It is becoming necessary to prioritize things such as to postpone them.

  As a method for solving such a problem, Patent Document 1 “E-mail classification method and its implementing device and its processing program” is known. In this invention, the user can register the degree of interest with respect to the mail, and assigns a high score to the word included in the mail with a high degree of interest. The importance level of the mail is calculated according to the number of words included in the text, and the received mail is classified according to the calculated importance level.

  Further, Patent Document 2 “E-mail transmission / reception device, e-mail transmission / reception system, e-mail transmission / reception method, program for causing a computer to execute the e-mail transmission / reception method, and computer-readable recording medium recording the program” The importance of the received mail is learned, the importance of the received mail is calculated from the learning result, and the mail presentation method is changed according to the calculated importance.

By using these inventions, important mail can be selected and read preferentially.
JP 2002-334045 A JP 2002-215543 A

  However, in the methods of these inventions, since the importance level of mail is determined in units of mail, for example, a part of mail exchanges in which a series of discussions are performed is lost, or mails in the latter half of a series of discussions are deleted. There is a problem that it may be prioritized over the first half of the email, and it is difficult to grasp the content of the email without a jump along the flow of discussion.

  This invention makes it difficult for a user to read a selected or prioritized received mail, so that it is difficult to grasp conversations and discussions without leaping away, and the latter half of conversations and discussions. The purpose is to solve the problem that the order of reading the mail does not go along the flow of conversation and discussion because the mail is given higher importance than the first half.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, at least one of message storage means for storing received messages, information on message reply relationships, information on message citation relationships, and date and time of message creation A message classification unit for grouping the received messages, and a message for recording unread information indicating whether the message stored in the message storage unit is unread or read by a user. Unread information recording means, determination means for determining the upstream / downstream relationship of the flow of conversation in a group for a plurality of messages made into the same group by the message classification means, and for each group, among unread messages belonging to each group, Depending on the judgment result, the highest conversation flow Further comprising a message display means for displaying unread messages located to provide a message processing system according to claim.

In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention,
In a message processing method in which a received message is processed by a computer, the computer stores at least one of a received message step, information on a message reply relationship, information on a message citation relationship, and a message creation date and time. The received messages are grouped together, the unread information indicating whether the stored messages are unread or read by the user, and the message classification means are grouped into the same group. Determining the upstream / downstream relationship of the conversation flow within a group for a plurality of messages, and, for each group, among unread messages belonging to each group, the unread that is positioned upstream of the conversation flow according to the determination result s message It provides a message processing method characterized by performing the step of displaying.

  According to the present invention, the user can not only read the received mail for each conversation and discussion content, but also read the conversation and the discussion in order without overflowing the received mail list or read the beginning of the conversation. Since it is possible to instruct whether or not to receive subsequent conversations, the mail can be read efficiently.

An electronic mail transmission / reception system according to an embodiment of the message processing system of the present invention will be described below.
This system is connected to a network such as the Internet, and functions to receive emails sent from other email sending systems that are also connected to the network, and send emails to other email receiving systems have.

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of an electronic mail transmission / reception system.
In FIG. 1, an electronic mail transmission / reception system 1 includes a network communication unit 11, a mail storage unit 12, a mail unread information recording unit 13, a mail classification unit 14, an intra-group mail upstream / downstream determination unit 15, a mail display unit 16, and a group display condition. It comprises a recording unit 17, a group priority calculation unit 18, and a message summary creation unit 19.

  The network communication unit 11 is a communication processing unit that exchanges mail with other electronic mail transmission / reception systems 1 connected to the network. Specifically, processing such as sending a mail to another electronic mail receiving system 1 or receiving a mail sent from the other electronic mail sending system 1 to the electronic mail sending / receiving system 1 is performed.

  The mail storage unit 12 is a processing unit that stores received mail and mail transmitted from the electronic mail transmission / reception system 1 by the user. Specifically, in addition to the body of the email, information such as the sender's email address, the destination email address, the message ID that is an identifier for uniquely identifying the email, and the message ID of the parent email are also included. accumulate.

  The mail unread information recording unit 13 is a processing unit that records whether or not the user has read the mail addressed to the user, and holds a pair of flags indicating whether or not the message ID of the mail is in an “unread” state. The mail received by the electronic mail transmission / reception system 1 is in an “unread” state in the initial state, and changes to the “read” state when the user performs an operation of reading the mail text. In addition, the mail created by the user and transmitted to other users is set to the “read” state.

  The mail classification unit 14 is a processing unit that groups mails stored in the mail storage unit 12. Specifically, a certain mail M1 and a reply mail M2 to the mail M1 are classified into the same group. Mails that have no reply relationship are classified into different groups. A group formed by this classification method is the same as a message set generally called a thread. Note that this classification method is merely an example, and other methods may be used, for example, classification based on the citation relationship of the mail text.

  The grouping process is performed when the electronic mail transmission / reception system 1 receives a mail. The grouping process is also performed when the user creates and transmits a mail on the electronic mail transmission / reception system 1. Accordingly, the transmitted / received mail stored in the electronic mail transmission / reception system 1 is always classified.

  The intra-group mail upstream / downstream determination unit 15 is a processing unit for determining which mail is upstream of the conversation flow for two mails in the group. By using the intra-group mail upstream / downstream determination unit 15, mails can be arranged in order according to the conversation flow within the group. In this embodiment, of the two mails in the group, the mail with the oldest creation date is determined to be upstream. This determination method is merely an example, for example, a method of determining the reply source email as upstream by looking at the reply relationship between emails, a method of determining the quote source email as upstream by looking at the quote relationship between emails, etc. Other methods may be used.

  The message summary creation unit 19 is a processing unit for creating a summary sentence of the body of one or more mails. As a summarization method, for example, various known summarization techniques such as extracting and connecting the first paragraph of the text are used.

  The mail display unit 16 is a processing unit for displaying mail stored in the mail storage unit 12 to the user. More specifically, the mail display unit 16 includes a mail list display unit 161 for displaying a list of mails, and a mail text display unit 162 for displaying the text of the mails. The mail display unit 16 also has a function of performing GUI processing and the like.

  In the mail list display portion 161, for each group of the electronic mail transmission / reception system, only unread mail belonging to the group that is determined to be the most upstream by the intra-group mail upstream / downstream determination portion 15 is displayed. For example, there is a group MG1 = {M1, M2, M3}, a group MG2 = {M4, M5}, a group MG3 = {M6, M7, M8, M9}. In the group MG1, M1 is the most upstream unread mail. If M4 is the most upstream unread mail in MG2 and M6 is the most upstream unread mail in group MG3, only mail M1, mail M4 and mail M6 are displayed in mail list display portion 161.

  As described above, in the electronic mail transmission / reception system, among the received mails, only the first unread mail in the conversation among the unread mails in the same group is displayed as a list for selecting mails. As a result, it is possible to reduce the trouble of searching for a mail (message) that should be read from a large number of received mails.

  The user selects a mail displayed on the mail list display unit 161 with a mouse or the like. Then, for this selected mail, the flag indicating the unread state recorded in the mail storage unit 12 is changed from “unread” to “read”, and the mail body is read from the mail storage unit 12 and the mail is read. It is displayed on the text display unit 162.

An example of the display screen of the mail display unit 16 is shown in FIG.
As described above, the mail list display unit 161 displays a list of mails, and the mail body display unit 162 displays the body of the mail selected by the mail list display unit 161. The mail selected in the mail list display unit 161 is displayed in a shaded manner in the mail list display unit 161. FIG. 2 shows that the shaded mail on the third line of the mail list display unit 161 is selected.

  In the mail list display portion 161 of FIG. 2, the first and fifth line mails in which the “Subject” character is bold are mails in an “unread” state, and the normal thickness characters are “existing”. It is an e-mail in the “read” state. The mails in the second to fourth lines of the mail list display unit 161 are displayed in bold when the “Subject” character is bold when the mails of these groups are first displayed on the mail list display unit 161. Since the mail on the second to fourth lines is selected and the text of the mail is read, it is read and becomes a character of normal thickness.

  Further, a group opening / closing icon 21 is displayed on the left side of the subject of the mail in the mail list display portion 161 of FIG. 2, and the user presses this group opening / closing icon 21 to be the same as the pressed group opening / closing icon 21. Among the mails belonging to the same group as the mail on the line, the mails that have been read can be displayed in a list for upstream and downstream. When the group opening / closing icon 21 is pressed again, the original display is restored.

  When the symbol in the group opening / closing icon 21 is “+”, it indicates that there is a message that can be displayed upstream or downstream of the mail of the group opening / closing icon 21. This indicates that there is no message that can be displayed downstream.

  In the mail list display on the mail list display section 161, reply mails that have been replied to the mail belonging to the group displayed in the list are also displayed at the same time. With this function, it is possible to browse previous discussions about the displayed mail without a break.

FIG. 3 shows a display example of the state after the group opening / closing icon 21 is pressed from the state of FIG.
In the mail list display portion 161 of FIG. 3, messages in the group to which the mail whose group opening / closing icon 21 is pressed belong are expanded and displayed in order of creation date and time. When this development is performed, the mail from where to where is the same group is displayed, for example, by the broken line 31 in FIG. In this example, three mails within a broken line indicate the same group. Moreover, the method of displaying in an identifiable manner by the method using the broken line 31 is an example, and the display method is not particularly limited as long as it can be displayed in an identifiable manner for the user, such as changing the color of a character or a character background.

  Further, the display order of mails displayed on the mail list display unit 161 is determined by the group display conditions specified in the pop-up window displayed by pressing the group display condition specifying button 22 in FIG. This pop-up window is realized by the GUI processing function of the mail display unit 16.

  An example of a pop-up window display screen is shown in FIG. In the group display condition designation window 91 of FIG. 9, two settings, a standard setting 911 and a setting 912 regarding the currently selected group, can be performed. The settings made here are recorded in the group display condition recording unit 17.

The standard setting 911 is a setting for all groups.
In the “highlight a mail including the following keywords” text box 9111, a keyword to be included in a mail belonging to a group to be preferentially displayed is designated. When mail including the keyword specified here is displayed on the mail list display unit 161, the priority of the group to which the mail belongs is calculated as “high” by the group priority calculation unit 18. Also, in the “Highlight a mail from the following sender” text box 9112, a sender mail address of a mail belonging to a group to be preferentially displayed is designated. When mail transmitted from the mail address specified here is displayed on the mail list display unit 161, the priority of the group to which the mail belongs is calculated as “high” by the group priority calculation unit 18. When a mail that does not satisfy any of these conditions is displayed on the mail list display unit 161, the priority of the group to which this mail belongs is calculated as “low” by the group priority calculation unit 18.

  The display form in the mail list display unit 161 is changed as follows according to the group priority calculated by the group priority calculation unit 18 as described above. In the case of the present embodiment, for a mail belonging to a group having a group priority of “high”, a “★” mark is displayed next to the mail. For example, in FIG. 2, the email on the third line includes the keyword “answer” specified in the text box 9111 in FIG. 9 in the last line of the body of the mail body display unit 162. A “★” mark is added next to the mail.

  Note that the method of adding a “★” mark to a mail with a high priority is merely an example of the display form. In addition, for example, the display color of a mail with a high priority may be changed. Further, the keyword characters and address characters in the mail may be highlighted so that the keyword appearance location of the mail is known, and the location where the corresponding keyword exists can be displayed in an identifiable manner. . In this case, if it exists in the text, the mail text display unit 162 performs display processing such as emphasis.

  In this embodiment, the group priority is determined by a two-stage scale. However, the group priority is determined by using a multi-stage scale by calculating a value as the priority. May be. For example, a set word is included more times, or an e-mail containing more words is set to a higher value and set to a higher priority. At this time, for example, mails may be rearranged and displayed in descending order of priority, or only mails having a priority higher than a preset threshold may be displayed. By doing so, the user can read the mails in order from the mail considered to be more important.

  On the other hand, the setting 912 relating to the currently selected group is a setting relating to the group GS to which the mail selected in the mail list display portion 161 when the group display condition designation button 22 in FIG. 2 is pressed. If there is no mail selected in the mail list display unit 161 when the group display condition designation button 22 in FIG. 2 is pressed, this setting 912 is not displayed. What can be specified by this setting 912 is how to present to the user those emails that belong to the group GS among emails received in the future. Setting items are exclusive, and any one of them can be selected. In the example of FIG. 9, “display subsequent mails sequentially” is selected.

  The group display condition set in this way is referred to when the mail list display unit 161 is updated. When the mail list display unit 161 is updated, (1) when the e-mail transmission system receives the mail, (2) after the user selects and reads the unread mail, the selected state is released. (Ie when you select another email).

  Although details are not described in the present embodiment, for example, when there is a new unread message in the group, a “Read more” button is provided for reading the new unread message, and the user presses this button. Alternatively, this update process may be performed. Details of the update process of the mail list display unit 161 will be described later.

Next, the operation of the electronic mail transmission / reception system when a mail is received will be described in detail with reference to FIG. 2 and FIGS.
FIG. 2 is an example of a display screen of the current mail display unit 16.
FIG. 4A shows the received mail group 41 currently stored in the mail storage unit 12.
FIG. 4B shows a mail unread state 42 recorded in the mail unread information recording unit 13. The mail unread state 42 is associated with the “ID” of the mail and a flag indicating the unread state (indicated simply as “unread” in FIG. 4B).

  FIG. 4C shows an example of a newly received mail M00010. The number “00010” after the mail M00010 indicates the mail ID. This mail M00010 is a reply mail to the mail M00009 whose ID is 00009.

  In FIGS. 4A to 4C, “ID” is a mail identifier and is a value added to the mail header as a normal Message-ID header. Note that the format of the normal Message-ID value is not a numerical value, but the received mail group 41 in FIG. 4A is replaced with a numerical value for the sake of simplicity.

  The “parent ID” in FIGS. 4A and 4C is the ID of the mail that is the mail reply source. This is a value added to the mail header as an In-Reply-To header in normal electronic mail. This parent ID is also replaced with a numerical value for simplicity of explanation. When there is no reply source mail, the parent ID is set to 00000.

“Group ID” in FIG. 4A is the ID of the group to which the mail belongs. The group is created by the mail classification unit 14.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when a mail is received.
In FIG. 5, when a new mail M00010 is received by the network communication unit 11, the mail M00010 is first stored in the mail storage unit 12 (step 51).

Next, the mail unread information recording unit 13 records the mail M00010 as an “unread” state (step 52).
Next, the mail classification unit 14 sorts the mail M00010 into groups (step 53). This group distribution will be described in detail later with reference to FIG.
After grouping in step 53, the mail display unit 16 performs an update process of the mail list display unit 161 for the group (M00010, G00006) of the group G00006 to which the mail M00010 and the mail M00010 belong (step 54).

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation of distributing newly received mail M00010 into groups.
In FIG. 6, first, it is checked whether or not the mail M00010 is a reply to another mail (step 61). In step 61, if the mail M00010 is not a reply to another mail, a new group is created, the mail M00010 is assigned to the created group (step 62), and the process is terminated.

  In step 61, if the mail M00010 is a reply to another mail P, the received mail group 41 is searched for a group including the mail P (step 63).

  In step 63, if there is a group including the mail P in the received mail group 41, the mail M00010 belongs to the existing group (step 64), and the process is terminated. In step 63, if there is no group including the mail P in the received mail group 41, the reply source mail P is not stored in this system. The mail M00010 belongs to the group (step 62), and the process ends.

  In this example, since the newly received mail M00010 is a reply of the mail M00009, the mail M00010 is made to belong to the group to which the mail M00009 belongs, that is, the group G00006 whose group ID is 00006.

The mail list update process of the mail list display unit 161 in this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. This update process is performed by the mail display unit 16.
In FIG. 7, the mail display unit 16 first checks whether the mail MA belonging to the group G00006 is already displayed on the mail list display unit 161 (step 71).

  In step 71, if the mail MA belonging to the group G00006 is not yet displayed on the mail list display unit 161, the mail M00010 is displayed on the mail list display unit 161 (step 72), and the process is terminated. The details of the process of displaying the mail on the mail list unit 161 will be described later with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  In the case of the example here, the mail M000010 belonging to the same group as the mail M00010 has already been displayed in the mail list display section 161, so the mail M00010 is not displayed in the mail list display section 161.

  On the other hand, if mail belonging to the group G00006 is already displayed in the mail list display unit 161 in step 71, the mail belonging to the group G00006 is newly received among the mails displayed in the mail list display unit 161. Processing to replace with unread mail is performed (steps S73 to S75).

  In the case of the example here, since the mail M00009 “Notice of holding a liaison meeting” is displayed in the first line as mail belonging to the group G00006 in the mail list display section 161 of FIG. Replace this email according to the recorded conditions.

In the replacement process, first, an unread mail MU having the oldest creation date is searched for among mails belonging to the group G00006 (step 73).
Next, it is checked whether or not there is an email that matches the previous condition (step 74).
In step 74, if there is no mail matching the condition, the mail in the mail list display unit 161 is not replaced. On the other hand, if there is a mail that matches the condition in step 74, the mail M00009 currently displayed in the mail list display section 161 is replaced with a mail that matches the condition. The details of the processing for displaying the mail by this replacement will be described later with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  In the case of the example here, the mail M00009 exists as the mail that matches the condition. On the other hand, the mail displayed on the mail list display portion 161 is also M00009. Therefore, it will be replaced with the same email, and nothing will change.

As a result, the mail list display remains the same as the mail list display portion 161 of FIG.
Next, the update processing of the mail list display of the mail list display unit 161 when the user reads the mail M00009 “Notice of holding a liaison meeting” will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.

FIGS. 8A and 8B show only the mail list display portion 161 of the mail display portion 16.
In FIG. 2, when the user selects and reads the mail M00009 “Subject: Notice of holding a meeting” displayed on the first line of the mail list display unit 161, the mail M00009 is “ The text is changed to the “read” state, and the thickness of the character is changed to a normal thickness, and the background is shaded to indicate that it is selected.

  Thereafter, for example, when the user selects another mail M00005 “Subject: Re: Farewell party for Mr. Tanaka” displayed in the fifth line of the mail list display section 161, the selected state of the mail M00009 is canceled, and at this time The mail list display is updated for the group G00006 to which the mail M00009 belongs.

  The mail list display update process for the group G00006 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the update process of the mail list display for the received mail M and the group G to which the mail M belongs when a new mail is received as described above. Mail update processing other than the time of reception is also processed according to the same flowchart. Note that there is no mail corresponding to the received mail M except when the mail is received, but there is no problem because the mail M is not referred to in processes other than when the mail is received.

  First, in step 71 of FIG. 7, it is checked whether or not the mail MA belonging to the group G00006 is already displayed in the mail list display unit 161. Here, as shown in FIG. 8A, the mail M00009 is displayed in the mail list display unit 161. Since the first line is displayed, the process proceeds to step 73.

  In step 73, when an unread mail MU having the oldest creation date is searched for among mails belonging to the group G00006, a mail M00010 is found. Accordingly, the process proceeds from step 74 to step 75, and the mail M00009 is replaced with the unread mail M00010 and displayed on the mail list display unit 161 as shown in FIG. 8B.

  Thus, after the user reads the mail, the next unread mail is displayed as the mail list display by the update processing of the mail list display. In the previous example, the next new unread mail is displayed as the next unread mail.

  FIG. 10 illustrates an operation when a new mail M is displayed on the mail list display unit 161 or an existing mail displayed on the mail list display unit 161 is replaced with the mail M and displayed on the mail list display unit 161. It is a flowchart of the process for doing.

  Here, as the display conditions recorded in the group display condition recording unit 17, as shown in FIG. 9, “sequentially display subsequent mail” is specified for the group G00006, and the keyword specification of “standard setting” is specified. Assuming that “urgent” and “reply” are specified as the sender, and “tora@zzz.zz” is specified as the sender.

  10, when there is a chance that the newly received mail M00010 may be displayed on the mail list display unit 161 by new or replacement (for example, a new mail M00010 has been received or the same group as the mail M00010). The unread mail is read and changed to read), and the setting relating to the group G00006 to which the mail M00010 belongs recorded in the group display condition recording unit 17 is referred (step S101). At this time, if there is no setting relating to the group G00006, the process proceeds to step S110 (step S102). In this example, since there is a setting, the process does not move to step S110, but moves to the next step S103.

  The timing for referring to the above setting may be when the e-mail transmission / reception system is activated or when the setting is changed. In particular, a newly received mail M00010 is newly or replaced by a mail list display section. However, the present invention is not limited to the point in time when there is an opportunity to be displayed on the screen 161.

Next, it is determined whether or not the setting is “I will read the subsequent mail” (step S103).
If the result of determination in step S103 is Yes, the mail M00010 is set to the read state (step S104), and the process is terminated. In the case of this setting, the mail M00010 is simply read, and new display or replacement display on the mail list display unit 161 is not performed. The setting for selecting “I will read the subsequent mail” is mainly specified for a group that wants to refer to or search for the mail at a later date but does not need to read it now.

If the result of the determination in step S103 is No, it is determined whether or not the setting is “Do not receive subsequent mail” (step S105).
If the determination result in step S105 is Yes, the mail M00010 is discarded from the mail storage unit 12 (step S106), and the process ends. The setting for selecting “Do not receive subsequent mail” is mainly specified for a group that is determined to be unnecessary for the user as a result of reading the first mail of the group.

If the result of determination in step S105 is No, it is determined whether the setting is “summary display of subsequent mail” (step S107).
If the result of determination in step S107 is Yes, it is determined whether or not there are as many unread mails belonging to this group G00006 as specified in the group display condition recording unit 17 (step S108).

  If the result of determination in step S107 is No, the setting is “display subsequent mails in sequence”, so the process moves to step S110. The setting for selecting “display subsequent mails sequentially” is mainly specified for a group in which received mails are to be read one by one.

  If the result of the determination in step S108 is Yes, that is, if there are the specified number of messages, the message summary creation unit 19 creates a summary sentence of unread mail belonging to this group G00006 and displays it instead of the mail M00010. (Step S109). This summary of unread mail displays a summary of the summary in one mail format. Since this summary mail is a normal mail format, it is handled in the same way as other mails, and the subject and body of the summary mail are displayed for the subject and body. The setting for selecting “summary display of subsequent mails” is specified when it is desired to briefly grasp the contents of conversation in a group in which a large number of mails are transmitted.

  If the result of determination in step S108 is No, that is, if there are no specified number of mails, it is not time to display the summary at this time, so the process is performed without performing new display or replacement display on the mail list display unit 161. finish.

  In step S110, the group priority calculation unit 18 refers to the “standard setting” recorded in the group display condition recording unit 17, and the keywords “urgent” and “answer” designated in advance by the “standard setting” are mailed. It is checked whether it is included in the text of M00010 (step S111).

  If the determination result in step S111 is Yes, that is, if it is included, the group priority calculation unit 18 determines that the priority of the group G00006 to which the mail M00010 belongs is “high”, and the mail list display unit 161 The mail M00010 is displayed with a “★” mark (step S114), and the process is terminated.

  If the result of determination in step S111 is No, that is, if it is not included, the group priority calculation unit 18 sends the sender “tora @ zzz of the mail whose sender of the mail M00010 is designated in advance by“ standard setting ”. .zz ”is determined (step S112).

  If the result of the determination in step S112 is Yes, that is, if it matches the mail sender “tora@zzz.zz” specified in “standard setting”, the group priority calculation unit 18 belongs to the mail M00010. The priority of the group G00006 is determined to be “high”, the mail list display unit 161 displays the mail M00010 with a “★” mark (step S114), and the process is terminated.

  If the result of determination in step S112 is No, that is, if it does not match the mail sender “tora@zzz.zz” specified in “standard setting”, the group priority calculation unit 18 sets the group priority. As “low”, the mail list display unit 161 displays the mail M00010 without adding the “★” mark (step S113), and ends the process.

  In this example, since the keyword “Urgent” designated by “standard setting” is included in the text of the mail M00010, the mail M00010 is displayed with a “★” mark.

As a result, the mail list display is as shown in FIG.
The user can read the received mail for each group of conversations and discussions. Also, since only the first unread mail is displayed for the same group, conversations and discussions can be read in order without overflowing the received mail list.

  The message processing system of the present invention can be realized as a program that is operated by a computer such as a workstation (WS) or a personal computer (PC).

  FIG. 11 is a diagram of a computer used in the questionnaire evaluation apparatus of the present invention. The computer includes a central processing unit 1101 that executes a program, a memory 1102 that stores the program and data being processed by the program, and a magnetic disk drive 1103 that stores the program, data to be searched, and an OS (Operating System). And an optical disc drive 1104 for reading and writing programs and data on the optical disc.

  Furthermore, an image output unit 1105 that is an interface for displaying a screen on a display, an input receiving unit 1106 that receives input from a keyboard, mouse, touch panel, and the like, and an input / output interface (for example, USB (Universal Serial) Bus), an audio output terminal, etc.). In addition, a display device 1108 such as an LCD, CRT, or projector, an input device 1109 such as a keyboard or a mouse, and an external device 1110 such as a memory card reader or a speaker are provided. The external device 1110 may be a network instead of a device.

  The central processing unit 1101 implements the functions shown in FIG. 1 by executing the program after reading the program from the magnetic disk drive 1103 and storing it in the memory 1102. During execution of the program, part or all of the search target data may be read from the magnetic disk drive 1103 and stored in the memory 1102.

  The basic operation is to receive a search request from a user via the input device 1109 and search for search target data stored in the magnetic disk drive 1103 or the memory 1102 in response to the search request. Then, the search result is displayed on the display device 1108.

  The search result may be displayed not only on the display device 1108 but also presented to the user by voice by connecting a speaker as the external device 1110, for example. Alternatively, a printer may be connected as the external device 1110 and presented as a printed matter.

  Note that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying the constituent elements without departing from the scope of the invention in the implementation stage. In addition, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of components disclosed in the embodiment. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Furthermore, constituent elements over different embodiments may be appropriately combined.

The figure which showed the structure of one Embodiment of the message exchange system of this invention. Example of screen of mail display part. A display example of the state after pressing the open / close icon. Examples of stored mail, mail unread status, and received mail. The flowchart showing the flow of processing when mail is received. The flowchart showing the process which distributes mail to a group. The flowchart showing the update process process of the mail list display regarding the group G and the received mail M. The figure for demonstrating the update process of the mail list display of the mail list display part 161. FIG. Example of display condition setting window. The flowchart showing the display process of mail. The figure which shows an example of hardware when a message processing system is implement | achieved by the computer etc.

Explanation of symbols

1 ... E-mail transmission / reception system,
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Network communication part, 12 ... Mail storage part, 13 ... Mail unread information recording part, 14 ... Mail classification part, 15 ... In-group mail upstream / downstream determination part, 16 ... Mail display part, 17 ... Group display condition recording part, 18 ... group priority calculation unit, 19 ... message summary creation unit, 161 ... mail list display unit, 162 ... mail text display unit.

Claims (8)

Message storage means for storing received messages;
Message classification means for grouping the received messages using at least one of information on message reply relationships, information on message citation relationships, and message creation date and time;
Message unread information recording means for recording unread information indicating whether a message stored in the message storage means is unread or read by a user;
Determining means for determining upstream / downstream relations of conversation flow in a group for a plurality of messages made the same group by the message classification means;
Message processing means for displaying, for each group, a message display means for displaying an unread message located at the most upstream of a conversation flow in accordance with the determination result among unread messages belonging to each group; system. Furthermore, it comprises group priority calculation means for calculating the priority of each group according to the message in each group,
2. The message processing system according to claim 1, wherein the message display means characterizes and displays the most upstream unread message in the group according to a group priority value calculated by the group priority calculation means. . Furthermore, it has a means to set keywords,
3. The message processing system according to claim 2, wherein the group priority calculation means calculates the priority according to the number of the keywords included in messages in each group. Furthermore, a means for setting information indicating the sender is provided,
3. The message processing system according to claim 2, wherein the group priority calculation unit calculates the priority according to information indicating a sender included in a message in each group.   The message display means is the unread message located at the most upstream of the conversation flow only for a group belonging to a group having a group priority in which the group priority value exceeds a predetermined value among the most unread messages in the group. The message processing system according to claim 2, wherein the message is displayed. Means for storing values preset by the user;
A message summary creating means for creating a summary when the messages in the same group are accumulated by the set value;
6. The message processing system according to claim 1, wherein the message display means displays the summary of the message as an unread message located at the most upstream of the conversation flow. For each group, a process storage means for storing a process to be performed on the newly received mail when a new mail belonging to the group is received;
5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a unit configured to perform processing stored in the processing storage unit with respect to the newly received mail when the mail is newly received. Message processing system. In a message processing method for processing a received message by a computer,
The computer is
Storing received messages; and
Grouping the received messages using at least one of information on message reply relationships, information on message citation relationships, and message creation date and time;
Recording unread information indicating whether the accumulated message is unread or read by a user;
Determining an upstream / downstream relationship of a conversation flow in a group for a plurality of messages made into the same group by the message classification means;
And displaying an unread message located at the most upstream of the conversation flow in accordance with the determination result for each group, in an unread message belonging to each group.

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