JPH06290122A - Information dividing/displaying type electronic mail system and electronic mall transmitting/receiving method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an information dividing/displaying type electronic mail system and an electronic mail transmitting/ receiving method which can divide and display the information on the electronic mail contents into plural pieces in the semantic relation designated by a user and can display these divided information. CONSTITUTION:An operator of a transmitter terminal 52 inputs the information on the contents of an electronic mail received from an information input part 53 and then designates the semantic relation of the information. Thus, an information structuring part 54 applies the structuring to the semantic relation of information based on the link relation. Then, the information on the mail contents are sent to an electronic mail center 51 via a mail transmitter part 55. A receiver terminal 56 receives the electronic mail from the center 51 through a mail receiver part 57. Then, the terminal 56 interprets the link relation on the structured information on the received mail through an information interpreting part 58. Thus, the mail contents information are displayed at an information display part 59 based on the interpreted link relation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail system for transmitting electronic mail from a transmitting terminal, storing the electronic mail in an electronic mail center, and receiving the stored electronic mail at a receiving terminal, and an electronic mail transmission / reception. Regarding the method
More specifically, the present invention relates to an information division presentation type e-mail system and an e-mail transmission / reception method capable of dividing and presenting content information of an e-mail as a plurality of pieces of partial information in a semantic relationship designated by a user.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional electronic mail system, as shown in FIG. 11, an electronic mail input from an information input section of a transmission terminal 11 is sent to an electronic mail center 12 via the information transmission section.
Sent to and stored in this e-mail center.
The e-mail stored in this e-mail center may be viewed by the receiving terminal 13 as a report that there is an e-mail that may be sent from the e-mail center, or the e-mail center may be accessed from the receiving terminal 13. The receiving terminal 1 performs the receiving process from the receiving terminal 13 by knowing that the electronic mail addressed to itself has arrived.
3 is received by the information receiving unit and presented through the information presenting unit.

The content part of the electronic mail in such a conventional electronic mail system has no structure at all,
Alternatively, it is structured by a template. For the former, which has no structure at all, the electronic mail center has no concern about the content part. In the latter one structured by the template, a predetermined template is embedded in the content part or the header, and the electronic mail system processes it. For example, in the case of multimedia e-mail, templates corresponding to texts, images, and voices are determined, media are discriminated using the templates, and respective parts are processed. Also,
In the case of ordinary text mail, templates corresponding to "title" and "synopsis" are prepared and each part is processed.

[0004]

As described above, in the prior art, there is a template for structuring the content part of an electronic mail, but in the structuring by such a template, only a predetermined template is used. There is a restriction that it can not be used and a relationship between templates cannot be defined. Also, since it is necessary to agree on the sender and the receiver to add the template, the user cannot easily add the template. There is.

The present invention has been made in view of the above,
The purpose is to provide an information division presentation type e-mail system and an e-mail transmission / reception method capable of dividing and presenting content information of an e-mail as a plurality of pieces of partial information in a semantic relationship designated by a user. It is in.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, an information division presentation type electronic mail system of the present invention transmits an electronic mail from a transmitting terminal, stores the electronic mail in an electronic mail center, and stores the electronic mail. An electronic mail system for receiving the received electronic mail at a receiving terminal, wherein the transmitting terminal inputs an information content of the electronic mail,
Replaces the semantic relationship between the content information specified by the user as a link relationship between the content information, and an information structuring unit that performs structuring together with the content information, and the structured information as an e-mail to an e-mail center. The gist of the present invention is to have a mail sending unit for sending.

In the information division presentation type electronic mail system of the present invention, an electronic mail is transmitted from the transmitting terminal, the electronic mail is stored in the electronic mail center, and the stored electronic mail is received by the receiving terminal. A mail system, wherein the receiving terminal receives an e-mail from an e-mail center, a mail receiving part, an information interpreting part that interprets a semantic relationship from the link relationship in the received e-mail, and the link relationship. The present invention has an information presenting unit that presents each information according to the above.

Further, in the information division presentation type electronic mail transmitting / receiving method of the present invention, an electronic mail is transmitted from the transmitting terminal, the electronic mail is stored in the electronic mail center, and the stored electronic mail is received by the receiving terminal. An e-mail transmission / reception method, in which an operator of a sending terminal inputs content information of an e-mail, specifies a semantic relationship between the input content information, and specifies a semantic relationship between the content information. Linking, structuring by link relations, and sending as e-mail to the e-mail center. The e-mail center receives and stores the e-mail, and the receiving terminal operator stores the e-mail stored in the e-mail center. Interpret the link relationship of the structured information of the received e-mail, and present the content information according to this relationship. And effect.

[0009]

In the information division presentation type electronic mail system of the present invention, the content information of the electronic mail is input from the information input section of the transmission terminal, and the semantic relation between the content information designated by the user is established between the content information. It is replaced as a link relation, structured together with the content information, and the structured information is sent as an electronic mail to the electronic mail center.

Further, in the information division presentation type electronic mail system of the present invention, the mail receiving section of the receiving terminal receives the electronic mail from the electronic mail center, and the link relationship in the received electronic mail causes a semantic relationship. Is interpreted and each information is presented according to this relationship.

Further, in the information division presentation type electronic mail transmission / reception method of the present invention, the operator of the transmission terminal inputs the content information of the electronic mail, specifies the semantic relation between the content information, and The structured information of the received e-mail is obtained by structuring the above-mentioned semantic relationship with a link relationship and transmitting it to the e-mail center, and the receiving terminal receiving the e-mail from the e-mail center. Interpret the link relation of and present the content information according to this relation.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an information division presentation type electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The information division presentation type e-mail system shown in the figure has a sending terminal 52 for sending an e-mail and a receiving terminal 56 for receiving an e-mail.
2 and the receiving terminal 56 are, for example, a communication network 6 such as a public communication network.
0, the LAN 61, etc., and is connected to the electronic mail center 51. Then, the electronic mail transmitted from the transmission terminal 52 is received by the electronic mail center 51 and is temporarily stored.

The e-mail stored in the e-mail center 51 may be received by the receiving terminal 56 or the receiving terminal 56 may see a report that there is an e-mail that may be sent from the e-mail center. By accessing the e-mail center and knowing that the e-mail addressed to it has arrived, the receiving terminal 56 accesses the e-mail center 51 to perform a receiving process, and the e-mail center 51 transmits the e-mail to the receiving terminal 56. Thus, the receiving terminal 56 can receive the electronic mail.

The sending terminal 52 has an information input section 53, an information structuring section 54 and a mail sending section 55.
Via the information input unit 53, the sender inputs the content information of the e-mail to be transmitted to the other party. Specifically, text information is input with a text editor, an image is captured from an image scanner, a video, or the like, or a voice is captured from a microphone, an audio interface, or the like.

The content information of the electronic mail input from the information input unit 53 is supplied to the information structuring unit 54, where the meaning of each information is given. That is, in order to give meaning to the content information, in the present embodiment, three types of links, that is, a parallel link, a continuous link, and a selection link described below are defined, and the content information is structured by a combination of these three types of links. It has become. As a result, the user can variously define the relationship between the content information by using the three types of links and their combinations.

A parallel link for giving meaning to content information is
A plurality of pieces of content information are presented at the same time, and as shown in FIG. 2, the content information linked by this parallel link is presented in parallel. This is a method of giving meaning when text and images and sounds corresponding to the text are presented at the same time.

Further, the continuous link for giving meaning to the content information means to specify the order relation between the content information such that after the presentation of one content information is finished, the presentation of another content information is continuously performed. As shown in FIG. 3, the content information linked by this continuous link is continuously presented. This is a big headline in newspapers,
This is a method of giving meaning when the content is gradually being refined or related information is presented one after another, such as subheadings and texts. Incidentally, in the continuous link, a plurality of pieces of content information are possible as shown in FIG. 3 as in the case of being connected by the parallel link.

Further, the selection link for giving meaning to the content information is for selecting and presenting one of a plurality of content information, and as shown in FIG. 4, the content connected by this selection link. Information is selectively designated and presented. This is a presentation method when the presentation content is changed according to the interest of the recipient.

That is, the information structuring unit 5 of the transmitting terminal 52
Reference numeral 4 represents the meaning of the content information designated by the user on the transmission side as a combination of the above-mentioned parallel, continuous, and selection methods, which is replaced by the combination of the three types of links.

Actually, the sender uses some kind of user interface to give meaning to these, but since this user interface is outside the scope of the present invention, description thereof will be omitted.

As described above, in the information structuring unit 54, the meaning specified by the sender is replaced with the structuring based on the link relation using the parallel link, continuous link and selection link on the electronic mail. The content information that is meant as a combination of types of links is transmitted from the mail transmission unit 55 to the electronic mail center 51 via the communication network 60.

FIG. 5 is an example of structuring showing the relations connected by parallel links. The PARALLEL structure in FIG. 5 is an element (text, image 1, image 2 here).
Is a structure that is connected to each other by a parallel link and has no particular order relation. FIG. 6 is an example of structuring showing the relationships connected by continuous links. SEQUE in FIG.
The NCE structure contains the elements within it (here two PARA
(LLEL structure) is a structure that is connected by continuous links and has an order relation. FIG. 7 is an example of structuring showing the relations connected by selection links. CHOI in Figure 7
The CE structure has elements within it (here two PARALL
LEL structures) are connected by a selection link, and one of them is selected. Note that FIG. 5 and FIG.
In the structuring example of FIG. 7, the structuring by links is mainly described, and therefore, accompanying information such as position information and format information is omitted. These pieces of information are actually passed as parameters of each structure.

By combining the above-mentioned three structures, the information structuring unit 54 represents the meaning of the content information designated by the sender. Then, the mail transmitting unit 55 stores the information represented by the combination of the above three structures in the content portion of the electronic mail and transmits it to the electronic mail center 51 as a normal electronic mail.

In the electronic mail center 51, the sending terminal 52
The e-mails received from the company are temporarily stored and delivered even if the e-mails consist of multiple e-mail centers. Also,
If possible, it may report that the mail has arrived at the destination receiving terminal 56.

When the receiving terminal 56 receives the electronic mail, the recipient sees the report from the electronic mail center 51 or tries to access the electronic mail center 51 to receive the electronic mail addressed to himself / herself. Know that After that, the mail receiving section 57 receives the electronic mail. The content part of the received e-mail is sent to the information interpretation part 58, and the structured content information is interpreted. FIG. 8 is an example of the content portion. In this case, SEQ
It has a structure in which two PARALLEL structures and one CHOICE structure are nested in the UENCE structure.

The information interpreting unit 58 performs a process of returning the content information, which is defined as a combination of three types of links in the information structuring unit 54 of the transmission terminal 52, from the link structure to the original meaning. Interprets the content portion as shown in FIG. 8 from above, and sequentially delivers the data to the information presentation unit 59 according to the structure. The information presenting section 59 is the information interpreting section 58.
It is composed of a switcher that sorts the data sent from the device according to the type of media and the type of format, and a set of device drivers that perform each presentation. The information interpreting unit 58 and the information presenting unit 59 present the structured information of FIG. 8 as shown in FIG. Further, the information presenting section 59 provides a function for giving a trigger for screen switching. For example, in the case of the SEQUENCE structure of FIG. 8, it is presented as a three-screen configuration as shown in FIG. The information presentation unit 59 of each receiving terminal provides a method of switching those screens. In the case of the CHOICE structure, it also provides a function for selecting a screen. Since this part is not included in the information transmitted and received, it is independently provided for each information presentation unit 59 of the receiving terminal. Therefore, the recipient can customize the information presenting unit 59 that he or she is using to make it easy to use.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an information division presentation type electronic mail system according to another embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment shown in the figure, the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 are integrated so that a transmitting / receiving terminal having both functions is connected to an electronic mail center via a communication network or LAN. The electronic mail transmission / reception method by each transmission / reception terminal is exactly the same as that of the embodiment shown in FIG.

In each of the above embodiments, the sending terminal, the receiving terminal, or the sending / receiving terminal is provided with the information division presentation function, but it is also possible to provide the electronic mail center instead of the terminal.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The semantic relationship between the content information specified by the sending terminal is structured by the link relationship and sent to the receiving terminal through the e-mail center, and the receiving terminal links the structured information. Since the content information is presented according to this relationship, it is possible to use only predetermined templates as in the past, it is not possible to define the relationship between templates, and it is not easy to add templates. There is no such thing, and the link structure can be freely defined with links and combinations of links.
Also, various relationships among the content information can be defined.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an information division presentation type electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a parallel link for simultaneously presenting a plurality of content information.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a continuous link that sequentially presents a plurality of content information.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a selection link for selecting and presenting one of a plurality of pieces of content information.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing contents linked by parallel links and an actual link structure.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing contents linked by continuous links and an actual link structure.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing contents linked by selection links and an actual link structure.

8 is a diagram showing an example of a content portion of an electronic mail according to the embodiment shown in FIG.

9 is a diagram showing a case where the content portion of the electronic mail shown in FIG. 8 is presented.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional electronic mail system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 51 electronic mail center 52 sending terminal 53 information input section 54 information structuring section 55 mail sending section 56 receiving terminal 57 mail receiving section 58 information interpreting section 59 information presenting section

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An electronic mail system in which an electronic mail is transmitted from a transmitting terminal, the electronic mail is stored in an electronic mail center, and the stored electronic mail is received by a receiving terminal, wherein the transmitting terminal is an electronic mail system. An information input unit that inputs the content information of the mail, and an information structuring unit that replaces the semantic relationship between the content information specified by the user as a link relationship between the content information and structures together with the content information. An information dividing presentation type electronic mail system, comprising: a mail transmitting unit for transmitting the converted information as an electronic mail to an electronic mail center. 2. An electronic mail system in which an electronic mail is transmitted from a transmitting terminal, the electronic mail is stored in an electronic mail center, and the stored electronic mail is received by a receiving terminal, wherein the receiving terminal is an electronic mail system. A mail receiving unit that receives an electronic mail from the mail center, an information interpreting unit that interprets a semantic relationship from the link relationship in the received electronic mail, and an information presenting unit that presents each information according to the link relationship. An information division presentation type electronic mail system characterized by having. 3. An electronic mail transmitting / receiving method, wherein an electronic mail is transmitted from a transmitting terminal, the electronic mail is stored in an electronic mail center, and the stored electronic mail is received by a receiving terminal. Enter the content information of the email, specify the semantic relationship between the entered content information, structure the link relationship to the semantic relationship between the content information, and send the email as an email. The e-mail center receives and stores the e-mail, and the operator of the receiving terminal receives the e-mail stored in the e-mail center from the e-mail center. An information division presentation type e-mail transmission / reception method characterized by interpreting a link relation of structured information and presenting content information in accordance with this relation.