JPH10240646A - Email system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To provide an e-mail system capable of smoothly exchanging information. SOLUTION: A sending terminal transmits a mail message including importance information and reference mail information which is a reference for relative evaluation of the importance information, and the receiving terminal is attached to the mail message at its destination. An appropriate evaluation value for displaying the importance is calculated from the importance information transmitted and the reference mail information, and a list of received mails is displayed based on the calculated evaluation value.

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 exchanging information by e-mail, and more particularly to a system for exchanging information while displaying the importance of information exchanged by e-mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art E-mail (hereinafter simply referred to as e-mail) is a communication means that allows an individual to write a message, such as a letter, when there is enough time, and to convey it to the other party at the speed of a telephone. .

The operation of the electronic mail system will be described below.

[0004] A sender of a mail transmits information (hereinafter, referred to as a mail message) including the text of the mail and attribute information such as the sender, title, and destination from a transmitting terminal to a SMTP (Simple Mail Transf).
er Protocol) or the like, and sends it to the receiving server via the transmitting server.

Here, the transmitting terminal is a communication terminal having a man-machine interface for transmitting mail.

In sending and receiving mail, the sending server plays a role of a post box, and the receiving server plays a role of a post office which manages a destination post office box.

[0007] A mail recipient uses a communication terminal (hereinafter, referred to as a receiving terminal) having a man-machine interface for receiving and browsing mail, and receives a POP3 (Post Office Protocol) from a receiving server.
ol Version 3) The received mail is read out based on a communication agreement such as 3).

In the above-described e-mail system, the transmission server and the reception server exist on different machines, and the system in which each machine is connected via communication has been described. There is also a method in which the server and the receiving server are both on the same machine, and do not use communication when sending a mail message to a destination.

Further, there is a method in which the transmitting terminal and the transmitting server are on the same machine and no communication is performed therebetween, or a method in which the receiving server and the receiving terminal are the same machine and no communication is performed therebetween.

[0010] The receiving terminal reads the mail message received by the receiving server, and displays a list of the received mails using the attribute information attached thereto. This also serves as a means for the recipient to select a mail to read based on the title name, sender name, and the like.

In exchanging information by e-mail, among the e-mails received, it is necessary to read high-priority e-mails as soon as possible after receiving them, but to read low-priority e-mails as time allows. It has the convenience of combining the advantages of both letters and telephones.

[0012] On the other hand, the way of understanding the importance of each received mail on the receiver side does not always match the intention of the sender, and in some cases, there is a problem that important information cannot be smoothly transmitted. Was.

The "importance" of a mail message
In other words, the word "importance" is used as a broad word including these meanings in the following description because it includes the meaning of "priority" and "urgency" of the information transmission.

In order to solve the above problem, a mail system has already been put into practical use in which information indicating the importance is added to the attribute information of the mail message so that the receiver can confirm the information of the importance assigned by the sender. Has been

Hereinafter, an example of this mail message is described in RFC822 (Request Foe) which is a mail message format most commonly used on the Internet.
An example based on the specification of rComment 822) will be described.

First, the sender, destination, and
Attribute information such as a title is defined in the format of a character string that defines the type of the information, a delimiter “: (colon)”, and a value or character string that indicates the content of the attribute information.
It is formed by arranging it separated by a line feed character.

For example, the attribute information indicating the sender is RFC
According to the specification of 822, "Fr" indicating the type of information
om ",": ", and the sender's mail address, for example," k.aoki@brother.co.jp ", from" From: k.aoki@brother.c ".
o. jp ".

[0018] RFC 822 also states that the type of this attribute information indicates that the user (actually a software developer)
Is allowed as long as it does not violate the rules of RFC822. At this time, it is recommended that a character string defining the type of data be prefixed with "X-". At present, according to the industry standard, there is a data type "X-Priority" as information in which importance (priority) can be described, and 1 to 5 can be set as values. The smaller the set value is, the higher the importance is, and the standard value is 3. That is, the degree of importance attached to the highest-priority mail is expressed as “X-Priority: 1”.

[0019]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional mail system, since the settable importance is an absolute value, an e-mail having a higher importance than the e-mail having the highest importance once transmitted. There was a problem that could not be sent. For example, if you later send a message to cancel the content of the message with the highest importance, the recipient will be treated as the same line because it can not be set higher importance than the message you want to cancel, The sender's intention was not well communicated.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-described problem, and has as its object to provide an electronic mail system capable of smoothly exchanging information.

[0021]

In order to achieve this object, an electronic mail system according to claim 1 of the present invention comprises:
Sending mail message information composed of text information which is the text of the e-mail to be sent and attribute information which is additional information such as a destination of the text information to the destination indicated in the attribute information And a destination provided with a means for displaying the received mail message information, the sending side comprising: importance information indicating the importance of the mail message information; Reference mail information for specifying mail message information serving as a reference for relative evaluation of information is added to the attribute information,
And sending the mail message information including the attribute information, the destination is based on the importance information and the reference mail information included in the attribute information of the mail message information received from the sending side. And an importance display means for displaying the importance of the mail message information received from the sending side.

That is, the sending side sets, in the attribute information, importance information indicating the importance of the mail message information and reference mail information specifying mail message information which is a reference for relative evaluation of the importance information. And send the mail message information including the information. Then, the importance display means of the destination displays the importance of the mail message information received from the sender based on the importance information and the reference mail information.

Therefore, by specifying the reference mail information, the importance information can be expressed relatively, so that the range of expression of the importance of the mail can be expanded and the intention of the sender can be more accurately communicated. it can.

[0024] The electronic mail system according to claim 2 is
At least information indicating the absolute importance of the mail message information is displayed. That is, since the importance display means displays the absolute importance of the mail message information, the importance information can be easily confirmed.

In the electronic mail system according to the third aspect, the importance display means displays information indicating a relative importance between the electronic mail system and the mail message information specified by the reference mail information. It is characterized by: That is, the importance display means indicates a relative importance relationship with the mail message information specified by the reference mail information, so that more detailed and accurate importance information can be confirmed.

In the electronic mail system according to the fourth aspect, the sending side sends the mail message information specified as the reference mail information by the same sender as the sender of the mail message information to be sent this time. It is characterized in that it is limited to only. Therefore, information can be exchanged without indirectly affecting the importance of the mail transmitted by another person.

[0027]

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

As shown in FIG. 1, the electronic mail system according to the present embodiment has a transmitting terminal 1 and a transmitting server 2 as a transmitting side, and a receiving server 3 and a receiving terminal 4 as a destination.
It is composed of

The transmitting terminal 1 includes a CPU 110, a program memory 111, a working memory 112, a transmitted memory 113, an input unit 114, and a communication unit 115.
16 to be connected.

The transmission server 2 is configured by connecting a CPU 120, a program memory 121, a working memory 122, a transmission queue 123, and a communication unit 125 via a bus 126.

The receiving server 3 is configured by connecting a CPU 130, a program memory 131, a working memory 132, a receiving spool 133, and a communication unit 135 via a bus 136.

The receiving terminal 4 includes a CPU 140, a program memory 141, a working memory 142, and a receiving memory 1.
43, an input unit 144, a communication unit 145, and a display unit 147 as importance display means are connected via a bus 146.

The sending terminal 1 receives an input of a mail message from a sender and sends a sending request to the sending server 2.

The mail message of this electronic mail system includes a mail text and attribute information as additional information of the mail. The attribute information includes source information for specifying a sender, destination information for specifying a destination, importance information indicating the importance of this mail, and a standard for specifying an already transmitted mail serving as a reference of the importance information. It contains mail information.

The transmitting terminal 1 is configured as follows.

The CPU 110 controls the overall control of the transmitting terminal 1.

The program memory 111 stores a program defining the control method of the transmitting terminal 1, and the working memory 112 stores temporary data generated during the execution of control by the CPU 110. Sent memory 113
Stores necessary information such as all mail messages or attribute information therein as mail transmission history information.

The transmitted memory 113 is provided for each sender, and only the memory relating to the person currently using the transmitting terminal 1 can be referred to. Therefore, the importance information is not indirectly violated, for example, by changing the relative importance of the mail transmitted by another person and giving priority to the mail transmitted by itself.

The input unit 114 is connected to a device such as a keyboard or a pointing device such as a mouse which receives an input from a user who is a sender, and receives an input of a mail message to be transmitted. The communication unit 115 includes the input unit 11
The mail message input by the user via the transmission server 4 is transmitted to the transmission server 2 together with the transmission request command.

The transmission server 2 receives a transmission request command and an input of a mail message to be transmitted from the transmission terminal 1, selects a reception server 3 as a transmission destination based on destination information in the mail message, and selects the transmission server. A mail message is transmitted to the receiving server 3.

The transmission server 2 is configured as follows.

The CPU 120 controls the overall control of the transmission server 2.

The program memory 121 stores the transmission server 2
The working memory 122 stores temporary data generated during the execution of the control in the CPU 120. Transmission queue 123
Is a memory storing mail messages waiting to be transmitted. The waiting mail is sent periodically,
It is transmitted when the communication connection with the receiving server 3 of the transmission destination is established, and the contents are deleted. The communication unit 125 receives a command from the transmission terminal 1 and transmits a mail message to the reception server 3.

The receiving server 3 receives the input of the mail message from the transmitting server 2, manages the received mail message based on the destination information in the mail message, and responds to a request from the receiving terminal 4 to convert the mail message. It transmits to the receiving terminal 4.

The receiving server 3 is configured as follows.

The CPU 130 controls the overall control of the receiving server 3.

The program memory 131 stores the receiving server 3
The working memory 132 stores temporary data generated during the execution of the control in the CPU 130. Receive spool 133
Stores the received mail message so that it can be retrieved for each destination. The communication unit 135 includes the transmission server 2
Receiving a mail message from and receiving terminal 4
It also sends email messages to.

The receiving terminal 4 issues a request for sending a mail message to the receiving server 3 and receives and displays the mail message sent in response thereto.

The receiving terminal 4 is configured as follows.

The CPU 140 controls the overall control of the receiving terminal 4.

The program memory 141 stores a program defining the control method of the receiving terminal 4, and the working memory 142 stores temporary data generated during the execution of control by the CPU 140. The reception memory 143
The received mail messages are stored so that they can be retrieved one by one. The input unit 144 receives an input of an instruction for browsing a mail by a viewer, and the communication unit 145
Sends a request to send the received mail to and receives the corresponding mail message. An output device such as a display device or a printing device is connected to the display unit 147, and displays a list of received e-mails and a selected e-mail message to a viewer.

In a general electronic mail system,
The transmission server 2 and the reception server 3 exist as software on the same machine, and a configuration in which transmission of a mail message between them does not involve communication, or a mail message corresponding to a destination without distinction between the transmission server 2 and the reception server 3 A configuration in which the information is stored in a storage area is also available.

The transmission terminal 1 and the transmission server 2 exist as software on the same machine, and the transmission of the mail message between them does not involve communication, and the reception terminal 4
And the receiving server 3 exist as software on the same machine, and a configuration in which transmission of a mail message between them does not involve communication is also possible.

In the present embodiment, the same operation and effect can be obtained by using these modified configurations. That is, the present invention is applicable regardless of the configuration of the electronic mail system.

The information exchange process using the mail message accompanied with the importance information by the electronic mail system will be described below in detail.

First, the format of a mail message of the electronic mail system will be described with reference to FIG.

The basic mail message format conforms to RFC822 described in the section of the prior art. In the format of RFC 822, attribute information is defined at the beginning of a mail message, and the text is defined after a blank line after one line.

Various kinds of information can be added to the attribute information. In this electronic mail system, “From” which defines the information of the transmission source by a mail address,
"To" which defines destination information by a mail address, "Subject" which is information of a mail title, and the importance of a mail message are defined by numerical values of 1 to 5 (smaller is important, 3 is standard). , "X" as importance information
“-Priority” and “X-Priority-Base” as reference mail information, which is information for setting a reference of the relative evaluation of the importance of the mail to be transmitted this time among the already transmitted mail messages. Used.

The above-mentioned "X-Priority-Base"
As shown in FIG. 2, is defined from a character string 21 extracted from the character string "Subject" of the sent mail message as a reference for the relative evaluation, and a data size 22 of the body. The character string 21 and the data size 22
Is delimited by ";(semicolon)".

The "X-Priority" is 1 to
Not only can a value other than 5 be settable, but also various changes can be made to “X-Priority-Base”. For example, if definition by attribute information is possible, other arbitrary information on a mail message can be used instead of the data size or the like. Also, it is possible to use a method of attaching unique identification information to all mail messages and designating with the identification information, or a method of designating a keyword in the mail message and designating a mail message including the keyword. it can.

Next, a description will be given of processing for sending and receiving mails in the electronic mail system.

The communication between the transmitting terminal 1 and the transmitting server 2, the communication between the transmitting server 2 and the receiving server 3, and the communication between the receiving server 3 and the receiving terminal 4 can be realized within the range of known techniques. Therefore, the description is omitted. Hereinafter, a process of adding and transmitting importance information at the transmission terminal 1, which is a main part of the electronic mail system, and receiving a mail to which the importance information is added at the reception terminal 4, and listing the list The display process will be described in detail.

First, the mail transmission processing in the transmission terminal 1 will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the body of the mail and information such as its title and destination are received from the user interface for mail transmission via the input unit 114 (S3).
1, S represents a step. Hereinafter the same).

Next, the operator is instructed on the importance information of the mail and the reference mail information, and the result is input to the input unit 11.
4 (S32).

The transmitting terminal 1 provides a user interface as shown in FIG. The importance setting box 41 is capable of selecting the setting of the importance information from any of “extremely high”, “high”, “standard”, “low”, and “extremely low”. That is, the button 411
Is clicked with a pointing device such as a mouse, and selection candidates appear as shown in FIG. 4B. Importance information is selected by clicking a desired item from the selection candidates.

The reference mail information is selected from the reference mail setting box 42. In the reference mail setting box 42, information of the mail that has already been transmitted is read from the transmitted memory 113, and the destination and the title are displayed. In the reference mail setting box 42,
An item of “unspecified” is also provided so that absolute importance information can be set as before. Then, by clicking a desired item from the displayed items with a pointing device, reference mail information is selected.

The reference mail information is not limited to the mail message in the transmitted memory 113.
You can also get information from other emails and set this information. However, for example, setting the importance based on another person's mail is not preferable for the above-described reason. Therefore, in the transmitting terminal 1, the selection target is limited to the mail message in the transmitted memory 113, which is related to the operator himself who is currently using the transmitting terminal 1.

After the selection is completed, when the OK button 43 is clicked, the selection becomes valid and used in the subsequent processing. When the Cancel button 44 is clicked, the selection is invalidated, the importance information becomes “standard”, and the reference mail information becomes “unspecified”.

Next, a mail message in the format shown in FIG. 2 is generated (S33). In the attribute information, a preset mail address of the operator is automatically inserted in the “From” part, and “Subject” and “To”
, The input title and destination information is set,
In the “X-Priority”, the input importance information is set as a value obtained by converting the level of “extremely high” to “extremely low” selected by the importance degree setting box 41 into a numerical value of 1 to 5, "X-Priority-Base"
Is generated by setting the title and body size of the mail specified as the reference mail information.
Then, by setting the mail text after one blank line in the attribute information, a mail message in the data format shown in FIG. 2 is generated.

Finally, the generated mail message is transmitted to the transmission server 2 via the communication unit 115 (S3
4).

Next, a process for displaying a list of received mails on the receiving terminal 4 will be described. This function displays a list of received e-mails to the operator, and presents the importance of each e-mail in an appropriate format to assist in determining the priority of browsing.

The display section 147 of the receiving terminal 4 is shown in FIG.
Alternatively, a list of received mails is displayed in the format of (b).

FIG. 5A shows a format in which the importance is displayed by an absolute value (hereinafter, referred to as an absolute display format), and the importance of each mail is displayed by an evaluation value described later.
It is assumed that the smaller the evaluation value, the higher the importance.

FIG. 5B shows the importance in a format for displaying the relative value between the respective mails (hereinafter referred to as a relative display format). In this format, the importance is displayed so as to show the correlation with the reference mail. The mail with the “「 ”mark on the left indicates higher importance, and the“ 「” mark on the left side of the “○” mark “+ −” Indicates a mail related to the mail, and indicates that there is a related mail having higher importance than the mail.

The storage format in the reception memory 143 will be described below.

The received mail message includes a mail I
A number, called D, for identifying the mail message stored in the reception memory 143 is given. And while each mail message is managed by the mail ID,
It is stored in the reception memory 143. Further, the reception memory 143 stores a result of evaluating the importance based on the importance information and the reference mail information, which is called an importance table,
It is stored in a predetermined format.

The significance table will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 6A is a conceptual diagram of the data format of the importance table in the case of the absolute display format, and FIG. 6B is a conceptual diagram of the data format of the importance table in the case of the relative display format.

First, the data in the absolute display format shown in FIG. 6A will be described. This importance table stores a mail ID 61, a title 62, a body size 63, and an evaluation value 64 of importance for each mail message.

Here, the title 62 is the title defined in the mail message, that is, “Su” in FIG.
object "is a character string defined in" bject ". The body size 63 is the data size of the body of the mail message. In addition, these title 62 and body size 6
No. 3 has the same relationship as the information defined in the reference mail information, so it must have the same data expression format. If one data expression format is changed, the other must also be changed according to the format. Occurs.

The evaluation value 64 is information indicating the importance of the mail message. The calculation and storage processing of the evaluation value 64 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, reference mail information is read from a mail message for which an evaluation value is to be obtained (hereinafter, referred to as a noticed mail message). Based on the read reference mail information, an importance table already existing in the reception memory 143 is read. The message ID of the mail message specified by the reference mail information (hereinafter, referred to as a reference mail message) is obtained (S71). That is, among the received mail messages recorded in the reception memory 143, “X
-Priority-Base "is searched from the data in the importance table for a message that matches the title and body size (reference mail message), and the mail ID is read out.

If there is a reference mail message (S72:
Yes), the evaluation value of the mail message of interest is calculated and stored in a predetermined area (S73).

The evaluation value is obtained by subtracting the standard value 3 from the importance information (value defined by "X-Priority") of the mail message of interest, and adding the evaluation value of the reference mail message obtained in S71 to this value. Is defined as

That is, 5 is added to “X-Priority”.
Is specified, the evaluation value is obtained by adding 2 to the evaluation value of the reference mail message, and “X-Priori
When "ty" is designated as 2, the evaluation value is obtained by adding (-1) to the evaluation value of the reference mail message.

On the other hand, when the reference mail message is not in the importance table, or when the reference mail information is “not specified” (S72: No), the standard value 3 is simply subtracted from the importance information of the mail message of interest. The value is calculated as an evaluation value and stored in a predetermined area (S74). Thus, as shown in FIG. 5A, the standard can be set to 0, and the smaller the value, the more important the evaluation value can be calculated.

Next, the significance table of the relative display format shown in FIG. 6B will be described. This table is shown in FIG.
(A) In the absolute display format, the root mail ID 65
Is merely added. Therefore, FIG.
The importance information in the absolute display format can also be displayed by using the importance table in the relative display format described above, and in that sense, the data format in FIG. 6B is more general. It can be said that.

The root mail ID 65 is a mail message that cannot be traced further as a result of tracing the reference relation of the mail message by the reference mail information, that is, the root mail ID 65 is at the position corresponding to the root in the reference relation of the reference mail information. Email ID of the email message
Is data to be stored.

Hereinafter, the process of calculating the evaluation value, obtaining the root mail ID, and storing the evaluation value in the relative display format shown in FIG. 6B will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Except for the process of obtaining the root mail ID 65, the process is the same as the absolute display format. That is, S7
The processes in 1, S72, S73, and S74 are the same as those described above.

When there is a reference mail message (S7
2: Yes), after calculating and storing the evaluation value in S73,
The root mail ID is read and stored (S75). Since the root mail ID has the same value as the root mail ID of the reference mail message, the value is stored. However, if the root mail ID of the reference mail message is empty (represented by -1), the mail ID of the reference mail message is stored because the reference mail message is the root.

When there is no reference mail message or when the reference mail information is “unspecified” (S72: N
o), empty (-1) is stored in the root mail ID (S)
76).

Based on the evaluation value 64 and the root mail ID 65, each evaluation value of a mail message group having the same root mail ID 65 and the root mail I
A method of performing a display as shown in FIG. 5B by comparing the evaluation value of the mail message indicated by D with a known technique is possible, and therefore a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

By using both the absolute display format and the relative display format, it becomes very easy for the recipient to judge the importance of two or more mail messages referring to different reference mail messages. In other words, even if two mail messages have the same importance to the reference mail message, the higher the importance of the reference mail message itself is, the higher the absolute importance is. When used in conjunction with the relative display format, the sender can take corrective action such as correcting the email or urgently contacting the email message of any importance,
At the same time, the receiving side can immediately grasp the relative relationship of each mail message, and can select and access the most important mail message.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, and various changes can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0096]

As is clear from the above description,
According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an e-mail system that allows information to be exchanged more smoothly by allowing relative designation of the importance of mail.

That is, according to the electronic mail system of the first aspect, since it is possible to relatively express the importance information, the range of expression of the importance of the mail is expanded, and the sender can be more accurately represented. Can communicate.

Further, according to the electronic mail system of the second aspect, it is possible to easily confirm the importance information.

According to the electronic mail system of the third aspect, it is possible to check the importance information in more detail and accurately.

Further, according to the electronic mail system of the fourth aspect, information can be exchanged without indirectly affecting the importance of the mail transmitted by another person.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a circuit configuration of an electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a format of a mail message handled by the electronic mail system.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a mail transmission process of the electronic mail system.

FIG. 4 is a view showing a user interface at the time of mail transmission processing of the electronic mail system.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of an importance display of the electronic mail system.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual diagram of data serving as a basis for obtaining the importance indication.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart for processing importance information in the electronic mail system.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart for processing importance information and reference mail information in the electronic mail system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 sending terminal 2 sending server 3 receiving server 4 receiving terminal

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method for transmitting mail message information including text information, which is the text of an e-mail to be sent, and attribute information, which is additional information such as a destination of the text information, to the transmission indicated in the attribute information An e-mail system comprising: a sender that sends the mail message information first; and a destination that has means for displaying the received mail message information. The sender indicates the importance of the mail message information. Attach importance information and reference mail information for specifying mail message information serving as a reference for relative evaluation of the importance information to the attribute information, and send mail message information including the attribute information. The destination is configured to include the importance information and the reference mail information included in the attribute information of the mail message information received from the sending side. Zui, the electronic mail system comprising: a significance display means for displaying the severity of the mail message information received from the sending side. 2. The electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein the importance display means displays at least information indicating absolute importance of the mail message information. 3. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the importance display means displays information indicating a relative importance between the mail message information and the mail message information specified by the reference mail information. Mail system. 4. The sender according to claim 1, wherein the mail message information specified as the reference mail information is limited to only the same sender as the sender of the mail message information to be sent this time. An electronic mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 3.