JP3899572B2 - E-mail display method and e-mail display device - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an e-mail display method and an e-mail display device.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In recent years, messages are often exchanged using e-mail, particularly between individuals. In the electronic mail, when writing a reply mail to the received electronic mail, it is possible to easily quote the received electronic mail. This can be said to increase the effectiveness and immediacy of electronic mail.
[0003]
The quoted part quoting the received e-mail is distinguished from the normal part by adding a specific symbol such as “>” or “|” as a quote identifier at the beginning of the line. .
[0004]
FIG. 16 is a diagram when the content of the e-mail received from the sender is displayed on the display screen 100, and FIG. 17 is a diagram showing a state in which a reply e-mail is created while quoting the received e-mail. . When the response mail creation operation is performed in the state where the contents of the electronic mail in FIG. 16 are displayed, as shown in FIG. 17, the quotation part (contents in FIG. 18) has a symbol “>” as a quotation identifier at the beginning of each line. Is added. FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a state where the sender is creating a transmission sentence while quoting the reply mail. As shown in FIG. 18, the first quote portion is now given a “>>” sign, and the portion corresponding to the response sentence is given a “>” sign.
[0005]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, when the quote part of an e-mail is displayed by the above-described method, if the quote part is long, the listability of the e-mail may be impaired. In particular, when displaying the contents of an e-mail on a relatively small display screen such as a portable information terminal, the entire e-mail cannot be displayed. FIG. 19 is a diagram showing a state in which the entire e-mail shown in FIG. 18 is displayed on a 20-digit 13-line display screen. As you can see from this figure, because the number of characters that can be displayed on each line is small, line breaks are made in the middle of the sentence, and as a result, the number of lines increases, so the quoted text with the email “>” added is displayed at all. Not.
[0006]
Therefore, the user needs to perform operations such as scrolling the screen in order to read the entire e-mail, and the user cannot easily grasp the entire contents.
[0007]
In addition, even when the outgoing mail is created using the portable information terminal, if the length of the email is long, it is not easy to grasp the entire email, and the creation efficiency is lowered.
[0008]
The present invention has been made paying attention to such a problem, and improves the e-mail listability and improves the readability of e-mail and the e-mail creation efficiency. It is to provide a mail display device.
[0009]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to achieve the above object, an electronic mail display method according to the present invention includes an electronic mail receiving process for receiving an electronic mail, and the first character of a line is quoted for the electronic mail received in the electronic mail receiving process. A determination step for determining whether or not each symbol is a specific symbol indicating a part, and the contents of all the rows in which the first character of the row is determined to be a specific symbol in this determination step are predetermined. And a reduced display step of reducing the display according to the rule.
[0010]
The electronic mail display device according to the present invention also includes an electronic mail receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, and a specific character indicating that the first character of the line is a quoting part for the electronic mail received by the electronic mail receiving means. Judgment means for judging for each line whether or not it is a symbol, and the contents of all the lines for which the judgment means judges that the first character of the line is a specific symbol are reduced and displayed according to a predetermined rule. And a reduced display means.
[0014]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a portable information terminal to which the present invention is applied. 3 is a CPU that controls the entire apparatus, 1 is a ROM that stores a program that defines the operation of the CPU 3, 2 is a RAM that accumulates various data, and 4 is a user input. A keyboard 7 for performing the operation is a liquid crystal display (LCD) 7 driven by LCD drivers 6 and 6 '. An external e-mail is input via an e-mail I / F 5. The e-mail I / F 5 may be a well-known RS-232C interface or a modem connected to a public telephone line. Further, it may be a digital I / F used for PHS or the like.
[0015]
In the above configuration, first, an outline of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state in which a received normal e-mail is displayed on the screen of the LCD 7 having a horizontal 20 characters and a vertical 13 lines of a portable information terminal described below. In FIG. 2, the symbols “>” and “>>” at the head of each line are citation identifiers, which indicate that this line is a citation part. In this example, since the number of characters that can be displayed on the LCD 7 is small, only the citation part occupies the entire display area. Therefore, the user cannot see the response to the transmitted electronic mail.
[0016]
On the other hand, in the present embodiment shown in FIG. 3, the quote part of the e-mail is reduced and displayed based on a specific rule. Here, only the first line of the quote part is shaded (shaded part). 8). In this way, by reducing the occupying area of the citation part for the screen 7, it becomes possible to display a reply mail for the transmitted electronic mail.
[0017]
In other words, in the example shown in FIG. 2, Mr. Ishikawa (Ishikawa @ MIC) sent an email (part with “>>” added to the beginning of each line) that a meeting will be held at Reception 101 on 2/8 (Monday). The message was sent to Mr. Watanabe. Mr. Watanabe replied to this e-mail (the part with “>” added to the beginning of each line), but he reconfirmed that 2/8 was Thursday. This is the quote section. In response to this question, Mr. Ishikawa has sent a correction reply email saying that 2/8 is Thursday. In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, only the first line of the quote part is displayed in a shaded manner, so that the reply mail of Mr. Ishikawa can also be displayed.
[0018]
Further, in a device capable of touch input by a user such as a touch panel, the quoted portion can be expanded and displayed as shown in FIG. 4 by touching and selecting the shaded portion 8. .
[0019]
Further, when the expansion key is pressed in the display state of FIG. 3 using the reduction / expansion key provided in the apparatus, the display is switched to the display of FIG. 4, and when the reduction key is pressed in the display state of FIG. 4, the display is switched to the display of FIG. It may be.
[0020]
Note that “>” (half-width) and “|” are widely used as symbols representing citations, but are not limited to such symbols, and other various symbols, for example, “>” full-width May be registered as a quote identifier.
[0021]
Details of the above-described citation reduction display will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, an e-mail display flow is started (step S1), and one line of the entire e-mail received via the e-mail I / F 5 is read (step S2). Here, one line is usually one line up to a line feed character. Next, the first character of the read line is evaluated (steps S3 and S8). That is, when the first character is a quote identifier indicating that it is a quote part, “>” or “|”, the process branches to the right. On the other hand, if the first character is neither “>” nor “|”, the process proceeds to step S9 to display one line read, and then proceeds to step S2 to read the next line.
[0022]
When branching to the right in step S3 or S8, the process proceeds to step S4, and the read line is shaded as shown in FIG. Next, the quote identifier of the read line is stored in the RAM 2 (step S5), and the next line is read (step S6). Next, it is determined whether or not the character at the head of the read line matches the quote identifier stored in step S5 (step S7). If they match, the process returns to step S6 to read the next one line. In step S7, it is determined whether or not the first character matches the stored quote identifier. While it matches, it is a quoted sentence, so the line is not displayed. When the determination in step S7 is NO, the process branches to the left, and the line at that time is displayed in step S9. In this case, the line is no longer a quote because the first character is not a quote identifier. Therefore, it is displayed as usual. Thus, in the first embodiment, the reduced display is realized by displaying only the first line of the citation section.
[0023]
According to the first embodiment described above, the quoted part of the e-mail is reduced and displayed, so that the e-mail in the case where the e-mail is displayed on a relatively small display screen such as a portable information terminal is displayed. It is possible to improve the mail listability and improve the readability of e-mails and the efficiency of creating e-mails.
[0024]
In the first embodiment described above, when the citation portion is displayed in a reduced size, the contents of the first line are displayed in a shaded manner. However, for example, an icon or a symbol indicating citation can be used. In this case, since the display area of the screen occupied by the quoting part can be further reduced, the listability of the e-mail can be further improved.
[0025]
In the first embodiment, the quoted portion of the received e-mail is displayed in a reduced size. However, when creating a reply e-mail to the received e-mail, the reduced display may be canceled immediately. That is, when the mail creation screen is displayed, the quoted portion is not reduced. This makes it possible to create a reply mail while grasping the contents of all the quoted portions, so that misidentification of the contents can be prevented. Also, the operation is not complicated.
[0026]
Further, in an electronic mail, a header part is generally added to a body and transferred. In this header portion, the sender, destination, CC, date of transmission, routing information, etc. are recorded. Since these pieces of information are usually unnecessary for the user, in many cases, only the sender and the date of transmission are displayed. However, it is necessary to look at the information in the header part in order to know who the e-mail was sent to and the route by which the e-mail was transferred. The former can be known from the CC information, and the latter from the routing information.
[0027]
In the first embodiment described above, a line beginning with a specific character is regarded as a citation part, and the citation part is displayed in a reduced size to improve the listability, and reduced if a reduced citation part is selected. The quoting part is enlarged so that it can be viewed. This method can be applied to the header portion in the same manner. That is, since there is a lot of information that the user does not normally need to see, only the name and the transmission date are displayed as shown by 9 in FIG. 6, and only when the extension is selected, the extension is shown as shown in FIG. So that the header can be seen.
[0028]
The second embodiment of the present invention will be described below. In the second embodiment, as shown in FIG. 4, the drawback in the case where the quoted portion is displayed in an expanded manner is compensated. In the screen shown in FIG. 4, for example, the citation identifier “>” is not added to the head of “Is it?” On the second line from the bottom even though it is a citation part. This is because the display screen 7 does not have the ability to display only 20 horizontal characters when there are 20 or more texts, so that the 21st and subsequent characters are forcibly broken.
[0029]
Therefore, in the second embodiment, as shown in FIG. 8, the symbol 8 as the citation identifier is supplemented to the portion where the citation portion is missing, so that the user can surely recognize that it is the citation portion. .
[0030]
The details of the above-described citation identifier addition display will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, an e-mail display flow is started (step S11), and one line of the entire e-mail received via the e-mail I / F 5 is read into the buffer (step S12). Here, one line is usually one line up to a line feed character. Next, the first character of the read line is evaluated (steps S13 and S18). That is, when the first character is a quote identifier indicating that it is a quote part, “>” or “|”, the process branches to the right. On the other hand, if the first character is neither “>” nor “|”, the process proceeds to step S20 to display the read one line, and then the process proceeds to step S12. Needless to say, if one line exceeds 20 characters in step S20, a forced line feed is performed.
[0031]
When branching to the right in step S13 or S18, the process proceeds to step S14 to store the quote identifiers up to characters that are not quote identifiers (stored consecutive quote identifiers), and then the number of characters corresponding to the display capability of the device. Is displayed. Here, 20 characters are displayed (step S15). Next, it progresses to step S16 and it is judged whether there exists any character which has not been displayed yet. When one sentence is 20 characters or more, it cannot be displayed in one line, so the determination in step S16 is YES. In this case, the quote identifier stored in the quote step S14 is first displayed (step S17), and then 19 characters in the buffer are displayed (step S18). Next, returning to step S16, it is determined whether or not there are characters not yet displayed in the buffer, and the above-described processing is repeated until the buffer becomes empty (until the determination in step S16 is NO). In this way, when one sentence cannot be displayed on one line, it is possible to automatically replenish and display a quote identifier missing due to a line feed.
[0032]
In the above-described second embodiment, when one sentence cannot be displayed on one line, a quote identifier is not added to a line after a line break, so that the quote identifier is automatically supplemented. However, such supplementation of quote identifiers may be performed for all characters regarded as quote identifiers. That is, as shown in FIG. 2, in the state where the quote part of the e-mail is expanded in the memory as display data, a line in which the quote identifier is missing although there are quote identifiers before and after (two lines in FIG. 2) As shown in FIG. 8, the same citation identifier as the previous line is supplemented as an additional symbol 8 as shown in FIG.
[0033]
The third embodiment of the present invention will be described below. The ability to display a quoted part is an advantage of e-mail. However, if the number of quoted stages increases, a considerable part of the display area of the screen may be occupied only by the quote identifier. For example, in the display example shown in FIG. 10, since the quoting parts from the first to third lines are quoted nine times, nine citation identifiers “>” are displayed in succession. This makes it very difficult to read on the screen of the portable information terminal and makes it difficult to grasp the contents. In particular, when the quoted identifier is repeatedly displayed on the next line, it becomes a big drawback.
[0034]
Therefore, in the third embodiment, the citation identifier is not displayed as it is at the head of each line, but only the number of citation stages is displayed to save the display area. That is, when citation identifiers are continuously displayed as indicated by “>>>>>>>>>” in FIG. 10, the citation identifiers are not displayed as they are, but are quoted as shown in FIG. The number of steps in which the identifiers are continuous (the number of repetitions) is displayed together with the quote identifier “>”. However, when there is only one quote identifier, this method is not applied to display as “1>”, but the display area can be saved by displaying only “>”.
[0035]
According to the third embodiment described above, more information can be displayed by effectively using the display area.
Details of the above-described citation identifier stage number display will be described below with reference to FIG. First, an e-mail display flow is started (step S31), and one line (up to a line feed symbol) of the entire e-mail received via the e-mail I / F 5 is read into the buffer (step S32). Here, one line is usually one line up to a line feed character. Next, the first character of the read line is evaluated (steps S33 and S40). That is, when the first character is a quote identifier indicating that it is a quote part, “>” or “|”, the process branches to the right. On the other hand, if the first character is neither “>” nor “|”, the process proceeds to step S41 to display the read one line, and then the process proceeds to step S32.
[0036]
When branching to the right in step S33 or S40, the process proceeds to step S34 to store the quote identifier and count the number of quote identifiers (continuous number). Next, as shown in FIG. 11, the count number is displayed (step S35), and the stored quote identifier is displayed (step S36). Next, characters up to the end of the line of one line stored in the buffer are displayed (step S37). In step S38, it is determined whether there is a character that has not been displayed yet. If one sentence is longer than 20 characters, it cannot be displayed in one line, so the determination in step S38 is YES. In this case, the display is changed (step S39), and the process returns to step S35. The operation of displaying the count number and the quote identifier at the beginning of each line is repeated until the display of all the character strings for one line thus captured is completed. When the display of all character strings in one line sentence is completed, the determination in step S38 is NO and the process proceeds to step S32. Note that the quote identifier counted in step S34 is deleted from the buffer.
[0037]
The fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described below. In the first embodiment, when the mail is displayed on the receiving side, the quote is shortened and displayed, but this can also be performed on the transmitting side. That is, as shown in FIG. 13, when the received e-mail is displayed (step S41) and the reply or forwarding icon is operated (step S42), the reply address is automatically entered or the forwarding address is input. create. Then, it is notified whether or not an e-mail message received as a quote is added, and if the user designates quoting (step S44), it is indicated by [END_SUB_BODY] from [SUB_BODY] in FIG. A quotation is created together with this control symbol (step S45).
[0038]
Then, the user inputs a message (step S46). At this time, the quoted text is displayed as a reference if necessary. The body of the input message is created together with this control symbol as shown in [BODY] to [END BODY] in FIG. 14 (step S47). When a transmission operation is performed, the message shown in FIG. 14 is transmitted as an electronic mail (step S48).
[0039]
On the other hand, when the e-mail is received on the receiving side (step S51), the text shown from [BODY] to [END BODY] is displayed as shown in FIG. 3 (step S52). Then, whether or not to refer to the quoted sentence is notified, and when the user operates the icon to refer (step S53), the quoted sentence indicated by [END_SUB_BODY] is displayed as shown in FIG.
[0040]
【The invention's effect】
According to the present invention, it is possible to improve the readability of e-mails and the efficiency of creating e-mails by improving the listability of e-mails.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a portable information terminal to which the present invention is applied.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state where a received electronic mail is displayed on a screen. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state where only the first line of a quote part of the electronic mail is displayed in a shaded manner.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a quoted part is expanded and displayed by touching and selecting a shaded part.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining details of citation reduction display.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example in which a header portion is displayed in a reduced size.
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a reduced header portion is displayed in an expanded manner.
FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a state in which a quote identifier is supplemented to a portion where a quote part is missing.
FIG. 9 is a flowchart for explaining details of a quote identifier addition display;
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a state in which consecutive quote identifiers are displayed as they are.
FIG. 11 is a diagram showing a state in which only the number of stages is displayed instead of consecutive citation identifiers.
FIG. 12 is a flowchart for explaining details of citation identifier column number display;
FIG. 13 is a flowchart for explaining an operation when creating an e-mail on the transmission side;
14 is a diagram for explaining the data structure of the e-mail created in FIG. 13;
15 is a flowchart for explaining the display operation of the e-mail created in FIG.
FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a state in which the content of an e-mail received from a sender is displayed in a conventional example.
FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a reply mail is created while quoting a received electronic mail.
FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a sender creates a transmission sentence while citing a reply mail.
FIG. 19 is a diagram for explaining a defect of a conventional display method.
[Explanation of symbols]
1 ... ROM, 2 ... RAM, 3 ... CPU, 4 ... keyboard, 5 ... e-mail, 6, 6 '... LCD driver, 7 ... LCD.

Claims (10)

An e-mail receiving process for receiving e-mail;
For the email received in this email receiving step, a judgment step for judging for each row whether or not the first character of the row is a specific symbol indicating that it is a quotation part;
A reduced display step of displaying all of the contents of the line head of the character is determined to be a particular symbol row shrinking according to a predetermined rule in this determination step,
An e-mail display method comprising: 2. The e-mail according to claim 1, wherein the determining step performs a determination for each line based on whether or not a first character of each line of the e-mail matches a specific symbol selected by the user. How to display.  2. The method for displaying an e-mail according to claim 1, further comprising a step of displaying the reduced quoted portion by selecting the quoted portion.  2. The electronic mail display method according to claim 1, wherein the reduced display is canceled when a transmission mail is created.  2. The display of an e-mail according to claim 1, wherein a line exceeding the number of characters that can be displayed is automatically broken, and the specific symbol is added to the line following the line feed. Method. E-mail receiving means for receiving e-mail;
  A determination unit that determines, for each line, whether or not the first character of the line is a specific symbol indicating that the e-mail received by the e-mail receiving unit is a quotation part;
  Reduced display means for reducing and displaying the contents of all lines determined by the determining means in accordance with a predetermined rule as to the first character of the line determined to be a specific symbol;
An e-mail display device comprising: 7. The electronic mail according to claim 6, wherein the determination means makes a determination for each line based on whether or not a first character of each line of the electronic mail matches a specific symbol selected by the user. Display device. 7. The electronic mail display apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising means for expanding and displaying the citation portion displayed in a reduced size by selecting it. 7. The electronic mail display apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the reduced display is canceled when a transmission mail is created. 7. The e-mail display device according to claim 6, wherein a line exceeding the number of displayable characters is automatically line-breaked and the specific symbol is added to the line following the line-break. .

Images