JPH1168829A - Communication terminal equipment with electronic mail function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide the communication terminal equipment with an electronic mail function where reception identification of a text mail whose identification is finished is not required in duplicate in the case that a down-loaded mail is left to a server or decoding of the mail is disable. SOLUTION: A main control section 1 uses a log-in ID of the user and a password of the user to log-in a network and to check a mail box and down- loads a mail box list of mails addressed to the user from the network and stores the list to its own RAM 7. Based on identification information denoting a mail having already been read, identifier of a mail whose disable decoding is identified and a subject or the like, mails whose identification information is not stored, that is, mails having not yet been read are received and identified and the receptible mails are down-loaded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication terminal device having an electronic mail function such as a facsimile device having a function of connecting to an electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a computer communication network which connects a local computer communication network with a communication line and distributes e-mail via a networked Internet or the like has become widespread. The computer communication network has an excellent error correction function and can communicate with computers not only in Japan but also abroad simply by paying the communication cost to the nearest provider (a connection company to the computer communication network).

[0003] The communication procedure and communication system of the conventional G3 facsimile apparatus are different from those of the computer communication network.
Cannot directly connect to computer communication network. However, even image data such as a transmission original can be transmitted to a computer communication network by converting the image data into an electronic mail format.

When a facsimile apparatus having an e-mail communication function receives a mail, it accesses a network, and a facsimile in a mailbox assigned to each mail address on a hard disk of a mail server for storing the transmitted mail. Check the device mailbox and download any emails that can be received.

[0005] In a facsimile apparatus capable of receiving text mail exchanged between terminal devices such as personal computers, the mail is in an encoding format in which header information of the text mail is analyzed and can be decoded by itself. Whether it is or not, the text mail that can be received is downloaded. At this time, the text mail that cannot be decrypted is left on the mail server.

[0006] Further, since the storage area of the hard disk of the mail server is limited, the area of the mailbox where each mail address can be secured is limited. Therefore, there are many e-mail software for sending / receiving e-mail, which is initially set so that the server deletes the mail downloaded by the terminal device. However, such software asks whether to keep the mail on the server when downloading the mail,
Unless you send a delete command, you can change the settings so that mail is saved on the server.

With such a setting, for example, a mail once downloaded to a personal computer of a company can be read from another terminal device such as a portable information device while away from home.

[0008]

As described above, text mails that cannot be decrypted by the facsimile machine and text mails that are designated so as not to be deleted even after downloading (read) are left in the mail server. Every time the facsimile apparatus receiving the e-mail checks the mailbox, it is necessary to identify whether or not these e-mails can be received.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem. In addition to a downloaded mail, a text mail once identified as incapable of decryption is identified by its identifier, subject, and the like. Stored as read mail using identification information, in case of setting to keep downloaded mail on the server, or duplicate reception identification of text mail that has been identified as incapable of decryption It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication terminal device with an electronic mail function such as a facsimile device that does not need to be performed.

[0010]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication terminal device having an electronic mail function, wherein a communication terminal device which stores a predetermined mail among the arrived mails in a server is provided with a mail which cannot be decrypted by itself. A means for storing the identification information of the read mail, a means for comparing the identification information of the mail stored in the server with the stored identification information, and receiving a mail which does not store the identification information as a result of the comparison. And means for performing the operation.

In the first invention, the identification information of the mail which cannot be decrypted by itself and the read mail is stored in the arrived mail, and the identification information of the mail stored in the server is stored. As a result of the comparison, the mail storing the identification information is not received as the read mail, and only the mail not storing the identification information is received as the unread mail. Therefore, in the case where the downloaded mail is set to remain on the server, the reception identification of the text mail that has been identified as being impossible to decrypt need not be performed repeatedly.

[0012] A communication terminal device with an electronic mail function according to a second invention is characterized in that the identification information according to the first invention is the content of a subject attached to the mail. In the second invention, the content of the subject included in the header information of the mail, that is, the title of the mail is stored as identification information. Therefore, even when using a mail service of a server to which an identifier for uniquely specifying a mail is not provided, unread / read read can be managed and versatility is high.

[0013] In a third aspect of the present invention, the communication means with the electronic mail function is characterized in that the storage means of the first or second invention is means for storing identification information of mail to a plurality of destinations for each destination. Therefore, for example, even when a plurality of users each having a mail address use one communication terminal device, it is possible to manage the read / unread state of the mail as described above for each user.

[0014]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile apparatus with an e-mail function according to the present invention (hereinafter, referred to as the present invention apparatus). In the embodiment of the present invention, the Internet is used as a computer communication network. The main control unit 1 controls not only the hardware units of the facsimile apparatus through the bus, but also
Based on the software stored in the ROM 6, the image data of the original is encoded or decoded by an encoding method such as MH, MR, MMR or the like.
F) Execute software such as communication procedures including conversion, binary / text conversion, mail editing, modem switching, control of RS232C by AT commands, etc.

As will be described later, the main controller 1 logs in to the network using the user's login ID and password, checks the mailbox, downloads a mailbox list of mail addressed to this user from the network, Subjec, the identifier of the read mail, the mail that has been identified to be undecryptable
Based on the identification information such as t, only the mail that does not store the identification information, that is, the unread mail is received and identified, and the receivable mail is downloaded.

In image conversion, at the time of transmission, G3 format image data is converted into TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), which is a general image format used in computers, and at the time of reception, TIFF to G3 format image data is converted. Convert to TIFF is published by Adobe Systems, and defines various classes that handle not only black and white binary but also black and white multi-valued and full color. One of them
CLASS F uses MH, MR, MMR
G3 format image data, which is image data of a document encoded by an encoding method such as this. Therefore, TIFF of CLASS F is added at the beginning of G3 format image data.
It can be converted to TIFF by adding header information.

In the binary text conversion, binary data is converted to text data at the time of transmission, and text data is converted to binary data at the time of reception. There are computers on the Internet that cannot handle binary data e-mail. When transmitting binary data such as TIFF image data, the data is first converted to text data so that the e-mail reaches the destination. Text data handled on the Internet is defined as a 7-bit code in RFC (Request For Comments) 822, which is a document issued by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).

Therefore, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mai)
l Extensions) Use base64 etc. for conversion.
According to this, 6-bit binary data is 64 characters (uppercase, lowercase alphabet, numbers, +, /)
And can be converted to text data. MIME is specified in RFC1521.

In the mail editing, at the time of transmission, mail header information is added to the TIFF image data converted to text data to edit the data into an electronic mail format, and at the time of reception, the mail header information is removed from the data in the electronic mail format, and Extracts only TIFF image data converted to data. Since it is specified that predetermined header information is added to e-mail on the Internet as e-mail management information, the "From: (user's Internet e-mail address) ) ”,“ To: (Destination Internet e-mail address) ”,“ Subject: (In this example, the login user ID,
Items such as a 4-digit serial number and a page number) "are added.

The reading section 2 reads an original by using a CCD or the like, and outputs image data of a black and white binary original. The recording unit 3 includes an electrophotographic printer or the like, and prints out image data of a document received from another G3 facsimile apparatus or the Internet. The display unit 4 includes a liquid crystal display device and the like, and displays an operation state of the facsimile apparatus and image data of a document.

The operation unit 5 has ten keys, speed dial keys, one-touch dial keys, various function keys, and the like necessary for operating the facsimile machine. The ROM 6 stores software necessary for the operation of the facsimile machine. The RAM 7 is composed of an SRAM, a flash memory, or the like, and stores temporary data generated when executing software.

In the present embodiment, a plurality of users each having an account and a mail address on the network can share the apparatus, and whether or not to receive text mail (ON / OFF) is determined for each user. It is possible to set. Each user is managed by user number, and for each user number, user ID, password,
A table in which ON / OFF is registered is stored in the RAM 7. In the RAM 7, read mails,
The identifier of the email that has been identified as undecryptable,
A mailbox list in which identification information such as a subject is registered (hereinafter referred to as an internal list) is stored.

The image memory 8 is composed of a DRAM or the like, and stores image data of a document. The modem 9 is a modem for performing facsimile communication of image data of a document read by the reading unit 2 and has no data communication function. The data modem 10 is, for example, a modem for data communication for communicating image data of a document converted into an electronic mail via the Internet, and includes, for example, an external telephone terminal provided on a chip of the NCU 11 and a telephone. And a serial port of an external I / F 12 for connection to a personal computer or the like, and an RS232C connection. NCU
11 closes and opens the analog line.

Next, the operation of the apparatus of the present invention at the time of receiving a mail will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 2 to 4 and the conceptual diagrams of an example of the network list and the internal list of FIG. In the following, it is assumed that a setting is made to save the mail in the mailbox even if the mail is downloaded when the mail deletion command is not output.

FIG. 2 shows an identifier capable of uniquely specifying a mail, for example, NIFTY-Serve (PC communication network of Nifty Corporation), an 8-byte alphanumeric character, POP (Post
Mess on servers that support Office Protocol 3
This is the procedure when using the server whose age-ID is assigned to the email.

When the user number is entered (step S
1) Read the user ID and password of the user from the table in the RAM 7 (step S2). Read user
Login to the network using the ID and password (step S3), and enter the mail service (step S4). For example, by sending a LIST command, the mailbox list of the mail arriving at the network mail server
A network list is downloaded from the network (step S5) and stored in the work area of the RAM 7.

One of the identifiers stored in the user's internal list is selected and compared with the identifier in the network list (step S6). It is determined whether the comparison result matches or not (step S7). If there is a matching identifier, a check mark is added to this identifier in, for example, a network list so as to ignore the read mail (step S8). As a result of the comparison in step S6, if the identifier does not match any of the identifiers in the network list, the mail with this identifier is deleted from the internal list as having been deleted by another terminal device (step S10).

The above steps S7 to S9 are executed for all of the identifiers in the internal list, and when all the identifiers in the internal list have been processed (YES in step S10), of the identifiers in the network list, steps S9 to S9 are executed. The mail with the identifier not processed in S10 is regarded as unread, one of them is selected, and the process proceeds to the mail receiving identification and receiving process (step
S11). The identifier of the mail that has undergone these processes is stored in the internal list as the identifier of the read mail for the next determination of unread / read (step S12). The above steps
It is determined whether or not S11 and S12 have been performed for all unread mails (step S13), processing is performed for all unread mails, and reception is completed.

Next, a procedure for using a server in which an identifier capable of uniquely identifying a mail is not assigned to the mail will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 3 and 4 and a conceptual diagram of an example of the list of FIG. Will be explained. As shown in FIG. 5, at the time when the mail is stored in the work area of the RAM 7, header information including the Subject is stored in the network list in the order of arrival of the mail, and the internal list has the same header information as the network list. The information is stored in the order of downloading the mail.

When the user number is entered (step S21)
), And reads out the user ID and password of the user from the table in the RAM 7 (step S22). A pointer is initialized to the beginning (end) of this user's internal list that stores the subject of the most recently downloaded mail (step S23). The user logs in to the network using the user ID and password read from the table in the RAM 7 (step S24), and enters the mail service (step S25). For example, a LIST command is sent to download the network list from the network (step S26).
If necessary, the contents of the list are rearranged in the order of arrival and stored in the work area of the RAM 7.

The subject in the network list that matches the subject of the current pointer in this user's internal list
Are searched linearly from the mail that has arrived before (step S27). It is determined whether the comparison result matches or not (step S28). If a matching Subject appears, the character string of the Subject in the matching network list is changed to, for example, NU.
LL is replaced and deleted (step S29), and the pointer of the internal list is incremented (decremented when initialized to the end) (step S31).

On the other hand, as a result of comparing all of the network lists retroactively, if none of the subjects in the network list match, the subject mail is deleted from the internal list as being deleted by another terminal device ( In step S30, the pointer of the internal list is incremented (or decremented when initialized to the end) (step S31).

The above steps S27 to S31 are executed for all the subjects in the internal list, and when all the identifiers in the internal list have been processed (YES in step S32), the non-NULL subjects of the network list It is determined whether or not exists (step S33). If there is no non-NULL Subject, there is no unread mail and the receiving process ends.

On the other hand, if there is a non-NULL Subject among the subjects in the network list, the next unread / unread
The subject is stored in the internal list as a read mail to determine the read status (step S34). One of the unread mails is selected, the process proceeds to the mail reception identification and reception process (step S35), the process is executed for all the unread mails, and the reception is completed.

[0035]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the communication terminal device with the electronic mail function stores the identification information of the mail that cannot be decrypted by itself and the read mail among the arrived mails, and stores the identification information in the server. Compares the identification information of the stored mail with the stored identification information. As a result of the comparison, the mail storing the identification information is not received as a read mail, and only the mail not storing the identification information is received. Is received as an unread mail, so in the case of setting to keep the downloaded mail on the server, it is not necessary to repeat the reception identification of the text mail that has been identified as undecryptable It works.

The communication terminal device with an e-mail function of the second invention stores the contents of the subject contained in the header information of the e-mail, ie, the title of the e-mail, as identification information. In the case of using the e-mail service, it is possible to manage an unread / read message and to achieve an excellent effect of high versatility.

Since the communication terminal device with the e-mail function of the third invention stores the identification information of the mail to a plurality of destinations for each destination, for example, a plurality of users each having a mail address can use one communication terminal device. Even when the mail is used, an excellent effect that the read / unread of the mail described above can be managed for each user is provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart (identifier) of a procedure at the time of receiving mail by the apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart (Subject) of a procedure at the time of receiving mail by the apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (Subject) of a procedure at the time of receiving mail by the apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram of an example of a network list and an internal list of the device of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Main control unit 2 Reading unit 3 Recording unit 5 Operation unit 6 ROM 7 RAM 10 Data modem 12 External I / F

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A communication terminal device for storing a predetermined mail in an arrived mail in a server, a means for storing identification information of a mail which cannot be decrypted by itself and a read mail, and A communication terminal with an e-mail function, comprising: means for comparing the identification information of a stored mail with the stored identification information; and means for receiving a mail that does not store the identification information as a result of the comparison. apparatus. 2. The communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to claim 1, wherein the identification information is the content of a subject attached to the e-mail. 3. The communication terminal device with an e-mail function according to claim 1, wherein said storage means is means for storing identification information of mail to a plurality of destinations for each destination.