JP2009147837A - Electronic mail display method and portable communication device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow display of information regarding unopened e-mail even in a small display region. <P>SOLUTION: A radio system circuit 102 receives e-mail and stores the received e-mail in a storage circuit 105. A control system circuit 104 selects e-mail to be opened from among the e-mails stored in the storage circuit 105. A display 103 opens the e-mail selected by the control system circuit 104 and displays its content. The display also displays the following information with tickers, that is, information such as the numbers in the total number of unopened e-mails, subjects of the unopened e-mails, and names of senders regarding unopened e-mails discriminated by the control system circuit 104. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a method for displaying an e-mail received by a portable communication device such as a cellular phone, and a portable communication device that receives an e-mail.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, electronic mail is transmitted and received by a portable communication device having a communication function such as a mobile phone or a computer.
For example, in a conventional mobile phone, when an e-mail is received, a confirmation promoting display of the received mail is displayed on the display, and when the display is designated and selected, only the latest one is displayed.

In this case, when a plurality of mails are received and there is a remaining new email other than the latest one, there is a possibility that an opportunity loss due to oversight may occur.
In addition, when there are a plurality of distribution destination folders for e-mail, and there are new e-mails in the plurality of folders, after the display of the selected new e-mail is finished, the e-mail in the holder where the new e-mail exists Since the mail is displayed, there is a risk of missing a new e-mail in another folder.

10 to 14 are diagrams showing a procedure of a simple confirmation operation for newly arrived e-mail and screen transition in a conventional mobile phone. FIG. 10 is an example of a received mail list, FIG. 11 is a standby display screen immediately after receiving an e-mail, FIG. 12 is a subject display screen of a new e-mail, FIG. 13 is a display example of a received mail, and FIG. It is a list display example.
Note that newly arrived e-mail means mail received from the network after the user ends the mail function until the next mail function is activated. In addition, the simple confirmation operation for newly arrived e-mail is to confirm a part of newly arrived e-mail by specifying and selecting a newly arrived e-mail icon displayed on the display 103 after receiving the newly arrived e-mail. The operation until the confirmation of the mail text is shown by pressing the select button while designating.

  Mail received from the network is stored in the received mail list shown in FIG. In the received mail list, for each received e-mail, the received e-mail number, stored folder name, opened state (unopened or read), transmission time stamp, reception time stamp, subject, sender The mail address of the sender is associated and stored in the storage circuit.

Next, as shown in FIG. 11, an icon indicating a new email is displayed on the display. When a new arrival email icon is designated and selected with the keyboard, the subject of the email is displayed as shown in FIG. 12 for the latest email in the received email list of FIG.
Furthermore, when the selection key on the keyboard is pressed in a state where the newly arrived email icon is designated, the mail text shown in FIG. 13 can be displayed.

When a list of received mails is displayed after checking the mail of FIG. 13, when the hierarchy of the mail function is changed by pressing the back button in the keyboard, a list in the received BOX folder shown in FIG. 14 is displayed.
Here, if number 1, number 2, and number 3 in the received mail list of FIG. 10 are received as a plurality of newly arrived emails, number 1 whose storage folder is the latest mail is stored for number 2 and number 3. Therefore, this simple confirmation operation procedure is not recognized by the user.

As an invention that seems to be effective in solving the above problem, a list of newly arrived e-mails is displayed even when there are a plurality of e-mail distribution destination folders. A portable terminal is disclosed in which the return destination is a list of newly arrived e-mails after the text is displayed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
As a result, it is possible to prevent missed new e-mails from being missed and to read new mails immediately, thereby eliminating the inconvenience.

  However, the invention described in Patent Document 1 has a problem that a large display area is required to display a list. Sometimes, a portable communication device such as a mobile phone is required to be miniaturized, and the display area is naturally reduced. Therefore, there is a problem that it is difficult to display easily in a list display that requires a large display area.

JP 2005-149372 A

An object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail display method capable of displaying information on an unopened e-mail even in a small display area.
An object of the present invention is to provide a portable communication device that can display information on an unopened electronic mail even in a small display area.

According to the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail display method characterized by determining whether or not a received electronic mail stored in a storage means has been opened, and displaying information on the electronic mail determined to be unopened as a telop on the display means. Provided.
It is determined whether or not the received electronic mail stored in the storage means has been opened, and information on the electronic mail that has been determined to be unopened is displayed in a telop on the display means.

Here, as information related to the e-mail, the number of the unopened e-mail in the total number of unopened e-mails may be displayed as a telop.
Further, as the information related to the electronic mail, the subject, sender name, and mail address of the unopened electronic mail may be displayed in a telop.
The unopened e-mail may be a new e-mail.

  Further, according to the present invention, a receiving means for receiving an e-mail, a storage means for storing the received e-mail, and an open mail selection for selecting an e-mail to be opened from among the e-mails stored in the storage means Means for determining whether or not the e-mail stored in the storage means has been opened, and displaying the contents of the e-mail selected by the e-mail selection means and displaying the contents, and the determination means is not opened A portable communication device is provided that includes display means for displaying the information related to the determined e-mail as a telop.

  The receiving means receives an electronic mail. The storage means stores the received electronic mail. The unsealed mail selection means selects an e-mail to be unsealed from among the e-mails stored in the storage means. The determining means determines whether or not the electronic mail stored in the storage means has been opened. The display means opens the electronic mail selected by the open mail selection means and displays the contents thereof, and displays the information about the electronic mail determined to be unopened by the determination means as a telop.

Here, the display means may be configured to display the number of the unopened e-mail in the total number of unopened e-mails as telop display as information on the e-mail.
Further, the display means may be configured to further display the subject, sender name, and mail address of the unopened e-mail as information on the e-mail.
The unopened e-mail may be a new e-mail.

According to the e-mail display method of the present invention, it is possible to display information about an unopened e-mail even in a small display area.
In addition, according to the portable communication device of the present invention, it is possible to display information relating to unopened electronic mail even in a small display area.

  First, the outline of the embodiment of the present invention will be described. In this embodiment, a function of extracting an unopened electronic mail from the received mail list is provided. By enabling telop display for all unopened e-mails after receiving e-mails, it is possible to prevent a user from failing to read e-mails. The target of telop display is not limited to newly arrived emails included in unopened emails, but can be urged to open emails by selecting all unopened emails by selection. Further, since it is possible to check the contents of e-mails to be displayed as telops and check the contents thereof, it is possible to reduce unsealing. The user may be prompted to select a confirmation promotion display for the received mail and select the confirmation promotion display to display a telop for the unopened e-mail.

Hereinafter, an electronic mail display method and a portable communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail.
FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a portable communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and shows an example of a cellular phone.
In FIG. 1, 10 is a mobile phone, 101 is a keyboard, 102 is a wireless system circuit, 103 is a display, 104 is a control system circuit, 105 is a storage circuit, 1051 is data of a received mail list, 1052 is data of the number of received mails, Reference numeral 106 denotes an audio system circuit, 107 denotes a microphone, and 108 denotes a speaker.

When the mobile phone 10 receives an electronic mail from the network, the radio system circuit 102 receives the modulated data, the control system circuit 104 demodulates it, and stores the mail content in the storage circuit 105. Further, the control system circuit 104 displays a mail reception mark on the display 103, and sounds a ringing tone indicating reception of the mail from the speaker 108 via the voice system circuit 106.
The user can display and read the content of the received e-mail on the display 103 according to the guidance on the display 103 using the keyboard 101.

As the received mail list 1051, the control system circuit 104 stores information related to electronic mail such as a transmission time stamp, reception time stamp, subject, sender, mail address, unopened / read flag, mail storage folder, etc. To store.
Similarly, the number 1052 of e-mails (corresponding to new e-mails described later) received from the network after the user ends the mail function until the next mail function is activated is stored in the storage circuit 105.

After the mail reception process is completed, the control system circuit 104 displays an icon indicating that there is a new email on the display 103. When the user designates and selects the icon display with the keyboard 101, the control system circuit 104 displays a part of the received mail on the display 103.
The control system circuit 104 performs various processing operations such as a processing operation in response to an operation of the keyboard 101, a display control operation of the display 103, a determination processing of whether or not an e-mail has been opened, and a selection processing of an e-mail to be opened. I do.

  Here, the keyboard 101 constitutes operation means, the wireless circuit 102 constitutes reception means, and the control circuit 104 constitutes discrimination means. The display 103 forms display means together with the control system circuit 104. Further, the control system circuit 104 constitutes an unsealed mail selection means together with the keyboard 101. The storage circuit 105 constitutes storage means, and the audio system 106, the microphone 107, and the speaker 108 constitute audio input / output means.

  The receiving means can receive and send electronic mail. The storage means can store the electronic mail received by the receiving means. The unsealed mail selection means can select an e-mail to be opened from among the e-mails stored in the storage means. The determining means can determine whether or not the electronic mail stored in the storage means has been opened. The display means can open the electronic mail selected by the open mail selection means and display the contents thereof, and can also display the information on the electronic mail determined by the determination means as unopened.

In addition, the display means can display the number in the total number of unopened e-mails of unopened e-mails to be displayed in telop as information about the e-mail.
Further, the display means can further display the subject, the sender name, and the mail address of the unopened e-mail, or one or more of them as telop as the information related to the e-mail.
The unopened e-mail may be a new e-mail.

  Note that, as described above in this embodiment as well, newly-arrived electronic mail means mail received from the network after the user ends the mail function until the next mail function is activated. In addition, the simple confirmation operation for newly arrived e-mail is to confirm a part of newly arrived e-mail by specifying and selecting a newly arrived e-mail icon displayed on the display 103 after receiving the newly arrived e-mail. This means the operation from pressing the selection button while confirming the e-mail text.

Next, a general received mail function of the mobile phone 10 will be briefly described. An example of the folder structure in the received mail BOX is shown in FIG.
FIG. 2 shows a display on the display 103. In this example, a reception BOX, a company, a circle, a temp, and a trash can are assigned as names of a plurality of folders.
Each folder for storing the received mail is provided in the storage circuit 105, and can be arbitrarily created by the user for organizing the mail, and the received mail can be moved to any folder. When the sender's mail address is known, the user can automatically assign it to an arbitrary folder when the mail is received.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 1, FIG. 3, FIG. 4, FIG.
3 is a diagram showing a change in the subject display screen of all newly arrived e-mails on the display 103 (FIGS. 4A to 4C), and FIG. 4 is a newly arrived e-mail from the newly arrived e-mail text display (FIG. 3A). It is a figure which shows the example of a transition to a list display (the figure b). FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a list of newly arrived emails stored in the storage circuit 105, and the newly arrived email list is stored as a table.

The simple confirmation operation procedure for newly arrived e-mail will be described below with respect to the difference from the above-described conventional mobile phone.
When a new e-mail is received, the number of new e-mails is temporarily stored in the storage circuit 105 as the received mail number 1052. In the case of displaying the title of the received mail from the new mail icon, in the above-described conventional example, the latest subject is selected from the received mail list in FIG. 10, but in this embodiment, the new mail is sent as a transmission time stamp. Based on the number of received mails 1052, the received mail list in FIG. 10 stored in the storage circuit 105 is extracted as in the newly arrived email list in FIG. 8.

Next, the titles of unopened e-mails (new e-mails in the example of FIG. 3) are displayed in telop as shown in FIGS. The telop display means that characters are displayed while flowing in a specific direction at regular time intervals.
Here, in order to make the user recognize not only the subject of all new emails but also the total number of new emails, the number of unopened emails received before the subject and the latest emails displayed in telop are displayed. By also displaying the numbers from, recognition can be improved.

Further, after confirming the body text of the new email (FIG. 4A), when the hierarchy is changed by pressing the back button of the keyboard 101, a list of new emails is displayed as shown in FIG. 4B. The
The unopened mail in the new mail list in FIG. 4 is stored in a different folder from the read mail on the received mail list, but since this list can be displayed in the same hierarchy in this operation, the new mail It is possible to reduce the leakage of opening.
Here, the range of newly arrived e-mails is defined by the number of newly received e-mails received from the network, but a reception time stamp can be substituted.

  As described above, according to the electronic mail display method and the portable communication device according to the embodiment of the present invention, the wireless circuit 102 receives the electronic mail, stores the received electronic mail in the storage circuit 105, and The control system circuit 104 selects an e-mail to be opened from the e-mails stored in the storage circuit 105. Further, the display 103 opens the electronic mail selected by the control system circuit 104 and displays the contents thereof, and for the electronic mail that the control system circuit 104 determines to be unopened, the number in the total number of unopened electronic mails, Information such as the subject and sender name of the opened e-mail is displayed in telop.

  Therefore, even when the display area of the display 103 is small, it is possible to display information about an unopened email. It also provides a means to display all new emails that are likely to be unopened using the same operating procedure as before, and lists destinations from emails opened by simple operation in an unopened new email list. By guiding, it is possible to reduce missed received mail while ensuring convenience.

  In addition, in the mail function of the mobile phone, it is possible to check the contents of newly received or unopened received mail and the number of target mails by a simple operation. In addition, the user can set the return destination to the mail list display after confirming the mail text by the same operation as the conventional one as a newly arrived or unopened received mail list.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described. The circuit block diagram of this other embodiment is the same as FIG. 1, and its operation will be described with reference to FIG. 1, FIG. 5, FIG. 6, FIG.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of transition from the new arrival e-mail text display (FIG. 5A) to the unopened e-mail list display (FIG. 5B), and FIG. 6 is the sender name of all new e-mails. It is a figure which shows the example (the figure (a)-the figure (c)) from which a display changes.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example of selection of received e-mail telop display, and it is configured to be able to select subject display, sender name display, and e-mail address telop display for each of newly arrived e-mails and unopened e-mails. Has been. When the keyboard 101 is used to select which mode to display the telop, the control system circuit 104 displays the telop on the display 03 in the selected mode. FIG. 9 is a list of unopened received mails stored in the storage circuit 105 and stored as a table.

  In the embodiment described above, the means for confirming a new e-mail in the simple confirmation operation procedure has been described. Similarly, for unopened mail, an unopened / read flag is used from the received mail list. The control system circuit 104 can extract the unopened received mail list in FIG. 9 from the received mail list in FIG. 10 stored in the storage circuit 105. Furthermore, after checking the text of the unopened e-mail, when the hierarchy is changed to the list display screen, the unopened e-mail list is displayed as shown in FIG.

In the unopened e-mail list of FIG. 5, since all unopened e-mails on the received e-mail list of FIG. 10 are displayed, the user can re-recognize the omission of e-mail.
In this way, a means for displaying all the unopened e-mails by means of the same operation procedure as before is provided, and the transition destination from the opened e-mail is guided to the unopened e-mail list by simple operation. As a result, it is possible to reduce missed received e-mails while ensuring convenience.

  As for the above-described telop display, in addition to the subject preview, it is possible to display the sender name and the mail address of the sender as shown in FIG. In addition, as shown in FIG. 7, the telop display target can be switched by providing a means for the user to select whether to display the sender name and mail address in addition to newly arrived emails and unopened emails. It is.

  In each of the above embodiments, the portable communication device has been described as an example of a mobile phone. However, PHS (Personal Handyphone System), PDA (Personal Data Assistance, Personal Digital Assistants), etc. It can be used for a portable communication device having an electronic mail communication function.

  The present invention can be used for portable communication devices having an electronic mail communication function such as a mobile phone, PHS, PDA, and portable personal computer.

1 is a block diagram of a mobile phone according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a folder structure in the received mail BOX in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the subject display screen of all the new arrival emails in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a transition from the new arrival email text display in embodiment of this invention to the new arrival email list display. It is a figure which shows the example of a transition from the new arrival email text display in embodiment of this invention to an unopened email list display. It is a figure which shows the example of a transition of the sender name display of all the new arrival emails in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a display of the reception electronic mail telop display selection in embodiment of this invention. It is a table which shows the new arrival email list in an embodiment of the invention. It is a table which shows the unopened received mail list in embodiment of this invention. It is a table which shows the general received mail list also including embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the standby display screen immediately after mail reception in the conventional mobile phone. It is a figure which shows the subject display screen of the new arrival email in the conventional mobile phone. It is a figure which shows the example of a received mail display in the conventional mobile phone. It is a figure which shows the example of a display list | wrist of the reception email in the reception BOX in the conventional mobile phone.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Mobile phone 101 ... Keyboard 102 ... Wireless system circuit 103 ... Display 104 ... Control system circuit 105 ... Memory circuit 1051 ... Received mail list 1052 ... Number of received mails 106 ... Audio system circuit 107 ... Microphone 108 ... Speaker

Claims (8)

  An e-mail display method comprising: determining whether a received e-mail stored in a storage unit has been opened, and displaying information on the e-mail determined to be unopened as a telop on the display unit.   2. The method for displaying an e-mail according to claim 1, wherein the number of the unopened e-mail in the total number of unopened e-mails is displayed as a telop as the information about the e-mail.   3. The electronic mail display method according to claim 2, wherein the information about the electronic mail further displays a subject, a sender name, and a mail address of the unopened electronic mail in a telop.   The e-mail display method according to claim 1, wherein the unopened e-mail is a new e-mail.   Receiving means for receiving e-mail; storage means for storing the received e-mail; unsealed mail selecting means for selecting an e-mail to be opened from among e-mails stored in the storage means; and storing in the storage means Determining means for determining whether or not the opened e-mail has been opened; and displaying the contents of the e-mail selected by the opened e-mail selecting means and displaying the contents thereof; and information relating to the e-mail determined by the determining means as unopened A portable communication device comprising display means for displaying a telop.   6. The portable communication apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the display means displays the number of the unopened e-mail in the total number of unopened e-mails as telop information as the information related to the e-mail.   7. The portable communication apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the display means further displays the subject, sender name, and mail address of the unopened electronic mail as information about the electronic mail.   The portable communication device according to claim 5, wherein the unopened e-mail is a new e-mail.

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