JP2003006122A - E-mail processing device and recording medium recording e-mail processing program - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] (with correction) [PROBLEMS] To provide an e-mail processing device and an e-mail processing program capable of managing information contained in an e-mail in a format that is easy for a user to understand. SOLUTION: An electronic mail processing device is provided with mail data 2
1. Data storage unit 20 for storing mail index data 22 and mail information cutout rule data 23
And an information extracting unit 30 for extracting information from the mail data 21, a mail analyzing unit 41 and a cutting rule data generating unit 42, and a cutting rule data operating unit 40 for performing operations such as creating and modifying the mail information cutting rule data 23. And an input unit 5 for the user to input various instructions
0, a mail list output unit 61 that outputs a mail data list, and a mail content output unit 62 that outputs the contents of a mail
, An communicator 70 for sending and receiving e-mails, and a controller 10 for controlling the above-mentioned units.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail processing apparatus for processing a received electronic mail, and more specifically, an electronic mail processing apparatus capable of separately managing individual information contained in an electronic mail and an electronic mail processing apparatus. The present invention relates to a recording medium recording an electronic mail processing program.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Today, various services using an electronic mail system have become popular, and one of them is an information providing service by electronic mail. This is a general document format such as text format or HT that provides information to be provided.
It is a service that provides information by editing in ML (Hyper Text Markup Language) format or the like and then delivering it by e-mail to a specific subscriber (receiver). Generally, in such information providing service by e-mail,
One of the features is that one e-mail contains a plurality of information.

In the electronic mail system, sending and receiving of mail is provided by a mail delivery service of a mail server built on the network. This mail service centrally manages the individual mailboxes of network subscribers. For mail sent to a mail server, the mail server writes the mail to the corresponding destination mailbox, and requests to receive mail are sent. If there is, it is provided by a system in which it is extracted from the mailbox assigned to each subscriber and sent to the request source. Furthermore, in the electronic mail display / processing device,
With regard to the emails sent from the mail server, the user manages and organizes the list by the sender, the subject, the date and time of transmission and reception, displayed in a list format on the screen.

By the way, the recipient of an electronic mail is usually
It is common to use a system called an e-mail client on a terminal such as a computer to acquire an e-mail addressed to oneself sent to a mail server and browse its contents. The client was able to manage the electronic mail only in units of one, that is, in units sent by the sender. Therefore, such an e-mail client has a problem that it is not possible to separately manage each piece of e-mail distributed by the above-described information providing service and containing a plurality of pieces of information. It was To solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-203214 discloses a technique relating to an electronic mail processing device having a function of separately managing individual information included in electronic mail.

[0005]

However, in such a conventional electronic mail processing apparatus, each piece of cut out information is treated as a separate mail which is independent from the viewpoint of management or the appearance of the user. There is a problem that the number of mails after cutting out becomes very large depending on the contents of the cutout source mails, which may rather make management difficult.

In recent years, PHS (Personal Handy
-Phone System) / Mobile phone, PDA (Personal Digi)
E-mail systems using portable information terminals such as tal assistants) are also widespread, but some of them limit the amount of information that can be sent and received at one time, so all necessary information is sent. May send the information in several separate emails. In the conventional electronic mail processing device, there is a problem that the divided information cannot be managed as one mail concerning the mail divided and sent by the sender into several different mails. there were.

The present invention has been made in view of these problems, and has a format that is easy for users to understand.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic mail processing device and a recording medium in which an electronic mail processing program is recorded, which is capable of managing information contained in a mail in more detail.

[0008]

According to an electronic mail processing device of the present invention, in an electronic mail processing device for processing a received electronic mail, a cutting rule storage for storing an information cutting rule for cutting out information contained in the electronic mail. Means, an information cutting-out means for cutting out the information included in the electronic mail according to the stored information cutting-out rule, an output means for outputting the cut-out information, and information for managing the cut-out information in a predetermined unit. It is characterized by having a management means.

The electronic mail processing device of the present invention thus constructed can manage the information contained in the mail more finely in a format that is easy for the user to understand. Further, the sending / receiving of mail data does not depend on the environment of the sending side. Further, more preferably, a plurality of types of output means are provided, and output designation information added to the mail,
The information may be output by switching the plurality of types of output means according to conditions such as the header information of the mail or a predetermined keyword.

Further, more preferably, the information cut-out means cuts out information contained in a plurality of mails, and the information management means manages the information cut-outs in the plurality of mails. Good. Further, it may be provided with a processing unit that performs processing such as transfer or search with the cut out information as one unit.

Further, according to the present invention, in an electronic mail processing apparatus for processing a received electronic mail, a computer stores a cutting rule storing means for storing an information cutting rule for cutting out information contained in the electronic mail, and the storing rule storing means. According to the information cutting rule described above, an electronic device including an information cutting unit that cuts out the information included in the electronic mail, an output unit that outputs the cut out information, and an information management unit that manages the cut out information in a predetermined unit. A computer-readable recording medium on which a program for causing a computer to execute a mail processing device is recorded.

The present invention also provides an electronic mail processing device for processing a received electronic mail in a computer,
Cutting-out rule storing means for storing an information cutting-out rule for cutting out information included in an electronic mail, information cutting-out means for cutting out information included in an electronic mail according to the stored information cutting-out rule, and the cut-out information Is a program for causing a computer to execute an electronic mail processing device including an output unit for outputting and an information management unit for managing the cut out information in a predetermined unit.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The preferred embodiments of the electronic mail processing device of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention, which is a block diagram of a basic configuration of all information devices such as a portable information terminal, a personal computer, and a word processor to which the present system is applied. is there. This is an example applied to a portable information terminal such as a PDA as an electronic mail processing device.

In FIG. 1, the electronic mail processing device 1 is
It comprises a control unit 10 (information management means) for controlling the entire apparatus, which is composed of a CPU and the like, and manages the cut out information in a predetermined unit, and a storage medium such as a RAM, a ROM, a disk, etc., for receiving a received mail or creating it. The mail data 21 in which the mail is stored in a prescribed format, the mail index data 22 in which information for creating a list of mail information included in the mail data 21 is stored, and the information cutout unit 30 (information cutout means) are one copy. Rule data 2 for cutting out mail information used to cut out information from other emails
3, a data storage unit 20 (cutout rule storage unit) that stores 3 and an information cutout unit 30 that cuts out information from the mail data 21 based on the mail information cutout rule data 23, a mail analysis unit 41, and a cutout rule data generation unit 42. And a cut-out rule data operation unit 40 for performing operations such as creation and correction of the mail information cut-out rule data 23, and an input unit 5 including an input device such as a keyboard and a mouse for the user to input various instructions.
0, a display device such as an LCD or a CRT, a printing device such as a printer, and a voice output device such as a speaker, and outputs a mail data list based on the mail index data 22. And an output unit 60 (output means) including a mail content output unit 62 that outputs the contents of the mail based on the mail data 21 and a communication method, a communication function such as a communication device, an electrical signal level, a protocol, and the like. Is a communication control device for, and is composed of circuit hardware and firmware,
The communication unit 70 is composed of a transmission unit 71 and a reception unit 72 for transmitting and receiving electronic mail, and a bus 80 that connects the control unit 10 and each of the above components.

The control unit 10 controls the entire apparatus including execution of application processing such as mail and information cutout processing, and each control unit 20, 30, 40, 5
0, 60, 70 are controlled collectively. The control unit 10 causes the data storage unit 20 to have a ROM, a RAM, and an EEPROM (electrically electrically rewritable nonvolatile memory).
erasable programmable ROM) and Flash ROM,
Various kinds of data such as programs, communication control data, and identification codes of electronic mail terminals are stored. EEPROM
Various specifications in the electronic mail processing apparatus 1 can be changed by changing the program written in the. That is, recently, in order to avoid the time loss of changing the mask ROM for each debug of system development, the program ROM is replaced with a non-volatile memory such as EPROM or E.
The EPROM is used to significantly shorten the program development and modification time. Further, by downloading the program and rewriting the program contents of the EEPROM, it becomes possible to easily upgrade the function or change the function.

The data storage unit 20 includes the ROM and RA.
In addition to a semiconductor memory such as M and EEPROM, a disk medium such as a hard disk drive (HDD) may be used, and a part of the data storage unit 20 may be removable as an external storage device outside the main body. The external storage device is, for example, a Compact Flash (CF) (CF) including a SRAM (Static RAM) card that retains information written by power backup or a flash memory that does not require power backup, smart media, memory stick, and Is an ultra-compact hard disk drive (HDD) or the like that is approximately the same size as a compact flash or can be mounted on a PC card Type II.

Details of the formats and usages of the mail data 21, the mail index data 22, and the mail information cutout rule data 23 stored in the data storage unit 20 will be described later with reference to FIGS. 4 to 9. Further, the information included in the electronic mail to be processed by the electronic mail processing device may be of any type such as text data, image data, voice data, and other data. Take the case of processing a mail with a format as an example.

The information cutout unit 30 cuts out information from the mail data based on the mail information cutout rule data 23. Note that the information cutout process is conventionally known, for example, from Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-203214.
The cut-out rule data operation unit 40 performs operations such as creation and correction of the mail information cut-out rule data 23, and the mail analysis unit 41 and the cut-out rule data generation unit 4
It consists of 2. Details of the cutting rule data operation will be described later with reference to FIG.

The input unit 50 includes a keyboard including an input key group such as alphanumeric keys for inputting various settings and cursor movement keys, a pointing device such as a mouse, and an input control unit for controlling input / output of the keyboard and pointing device. Become. Although it does not depend on the type of the output unit 60, the case of using a display device such as an LCD or a CRT is taken as an example in the present embodiment. The display device includes a display unit including a liquid crystal display device (LCD) having a dot matrix configuration for displaying mails, messages, various setting contents, and the like, an LCD driver for controlling the display unit, and the like. Details of the output method will be described later with reference to FIGS. 13 to 16.

As an example of the communication unit 70, the transmission unit 71 uses an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) at the time of mail transmission.
otocol) Sends an e-mail by connecting to a mail server or the like, while the receiving unit 72 sends a POP when receiving the mail.
(Post Office Protocol) A function such as connecting to a mail server or the like to receive an incoming mail may be provided. Hereinafter, the operation of the electronic mail processing device configured as described above will be described.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the registration processing of the information cutting rule of the electronic mail processing apparatus, and this flow is executed by the control unit 10. In the figure, S indicates each step of the flow. First, in step S1, a method of registering the information cutout rule is selected to automatically generate information cutout rule candidates.

Next, in step S2, it is determined whether or not the automatic generation of the information cutout rule candidate is selected. When the information cutout rule candidate is automatically generated, the user is made to specify the mail to be referred in step S3. . Here, it is assumed that the mail data shown in FIG. 4 is designated.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of mail data, and a line number is added to the left end of each line for convenience of explanation, but this may be omitted.

Next, when the mail is designated in step S4, the header and body of the mail are analyzed and candidates for the information cutting rule are generated. Specifically, a line starting from a special character string in the body of a mail or a line containing only a line feed code is often regarded as a delimiter of each information included in the mail. The features that can be used to extract this information are listed. Then, based on the listed features, candidates for the information cutting rule are generated. Detailed processing of generating candidates for the information cutout rule will be described later with reference to the flow of FIG. 3 and FIGS.

Next, in step S5, the user is presented with a candidate of the information cutout rule to be selected, and it is determined whether or not the user has selected one of the information cutout rule candidates presented in step S25. To do. When an appropriate or close candidate for the information cutout rule is selected, the information cutout rule is finely adjusted in step S7 as necessary, and this information cutout rule is stored in the information cutout rule data 23 of the data storage unit 20 in step S8. After the addition, the registration process of the information cutout rule is ended.

On the other hand, if the information cutout rule candidate is not automatically generated in step S2, or if the information cutout rule candidate presented in step S26 is not selected, the user cuts out the information in step S9. The rule is directly described and input, and the process proceeds to step S8.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing generation of information cutout rule candidates, which is a subroutine of step S4 of FIG. First, the header of the mail data designated in step S11 is examined, and if there is a header field included in the "list of header fields used as conditions for determining the mail to be cut out", "the mail to be cut out is determined". It is enumerated as "condition candidate".

Next, the body of the mail data designated in step S12 is examined, and if there is a line that meets the "list of candidate conditions for a delimiter line", it is listed as a "condition candidate for a delimiter line" and this flow is followed. Finish, step S in FIG.
Return to 5. A specific example of generation of information extraction rule candidates will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 9.

FIG. 5 to FIG. 9 are diagrams showing an example of generation of information cutout rule candidates, and FIGS. 5 to 9 show the flow of generation thereof. As shown in FIG. 5, the header field candidates used for the conditions for determining the mail to be cut out are To: From: Subject: Sende.
It is a character string following r :. In addition, the condition of the lines listed as candidates for the delimiter line is a line starting from a special symbol character string in the mail body or a line having only a line feed code. For example,
The line beginning with any of "● ▲ ▼ ■ ◆ ★ ○ △ ▽ □ ◇ ☆ ---", the line with multiple consecutive "=-+ *" characters, or the line with only line breaks If this is the case, the information cut-out condition is set. FIG. 6 shows an example in which the candidates for the information cutting rule are generated from the mail data of FIG. 4 based on the above conditions.

As shown in FIG. 6, the condition for determining the mail to be subjected to the clipping processing found by examining the mail data in FIG. 4 is that To: is ppp@qq.rrr.co.jp and From: is "A". -Subject including NEWS "<a-news@bbb.ccc.co.jp includes [A-NEWS 20001121] Also, the candidate for the delimiter line found by checking the mail data in FIG. Lines that are "", lines that start with "■", lines that start with "-", lines that have multiple "=" s, lines that have multiple "-" s, lines that contain only line breaks (blank lines) )
Is.

The conditions for deciding the mail to be cut out in FIG. 6 and the candidate example corresponding to the candidate of the delimiter line are as follows.
It is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 7, the condition for determining the mail to be subjected to the clipping process found by checking the mail data in FIG. 4 is that Subject: includes "[A-NEWS 20001121]". Also, check the mail data in FIG. The candidates of the delimiter line found by the above are the line whose head is "▽" and the line whose head is "■".

Further, FIG. 8 shows an example in which necessary parts are extracted from the candidate example corresponding to the condition for determining the mail to be cut out in FIG. 7 and the candidate for the delimiter line. As shown in FIG. 8, the condition for determining the mail to be subjected to the clipping processing found by checking the mail data of FIG. 4 is: Subject: contains “[A-NEWS”. Also, the mail data of FIG. The candidates of the delimiter line are a line whose head is "▽" and a line whose head is "■".

As a result, FIG. 9 shows an example of the final information extraction rule candidate generation of the mail data of FIG. 4 as rule 1: As shown in FIG. 9, Subject: is "
From the mail, including [A-NEWS], lines beginning with "▽",
Information is cut out using the line beginning with "■" as a delimiter line.

In this way, information cutting rule candidates are generated by utilizing the information cutting out such as a line starting from a special symbol character string in the mail text or a line containing only a line feed code. Here, in order to make it easier for users to understand the specification of the information cutout rule, a preview function that shows in advance how the information will be cut out when the selected information cutout rule is applied to the specified mail is displayed. It is desirable to prepare.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of the preview function. In this example, it is shown that the result is displayed on the screen when the user selects some of the cut-out condition candidates generated and presented. Figure 1
In order to realize the preview function shown in FIG. 0, in step S5, step S7, and step S9 of FIG. 2, it is displayed how information is cut out when the selected information cutting rule is applied to the designated mail. Add processing to display on the device. When the information cutout rule (rule 1) to be registered as shown in FIG. 9 is created, it is added to the information cutout rule data 23 of the data storage unit 20 in step S8. By the above processing,
The information extraction rule is registered.

Next, a process of cutting out information from the mail data 21 according to the registered information cutting rule will be described. Although there is a method of batch processing of information cutting at arbitrary timing, in the present embodiment, it is performed when a mail is received or a mail is created. Further, in the present embodiment, as an example of a mail data management method, a method of classifying and managing mail in several folders,
How to save one email as one file,
A method of preparing a mail index data file for recording the mail information contained in each folder and the case where it is used will be described.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing the information cutting process. The processing will be described below in the order of processing using the mail data shown in FIG. First, in step S21, one mail data item to be processed is stored, and in step S22, a folder in which the mail is stored is determined. In a general electronic mail processing device, a method of manually specifying by a user or a method of automatically classifying and managing mail corresponding to specified conditions into each folder is used.

Then, in step S23, the information included in the mail is cut out in accordance with the information cutting rule. In the present embodiment, since the mail data 21 is text data, information matching the information cutting rule is cut out by searching a character string. When the information is cut out, the mail index data 22 of the folder is extracted in step S24.
Is created or updated, and this flow ends.

FIG. 12 shows the mail index data 22.
It is a figure which shows an example. Here, the above step S23
Indicates that the three pieces of information cut out from the mail data 21 in FIG. 4 are included in the original mail. I121 is information about the entire mail, i12
2, i123 and i124 are data of information regarding each cut out information.

In each block, information referred to when creating the mail list and information for specifying the mail data 21 are described. In the example of FIG. 12, in the block of i121, the sender is "" A-NEWS "<a-news @ a
aa. bbb. co. jp> ”and the destination is“ ppp @ qq
q. rrr. co. jp ”and the subject is“ [A-NEWS2
0001121] ”, and the date and time of sending the mail is“ Tue, 2
1 Nov 2000 03: 00: 00 + 0900 "
And the data of this mail is "maildata.d".
It means that it is from the first line to the 51st line of the file "at". Based on the mail index data 22 created in this way, a display unit (output unit 60) described below displays a list of mails stored in each folder and detailed contents of each mail. The display unit has three areas: a folder list display area, a mail list display area, and a mail content display area. This is a display system as shown in FIGS. 13 to 16 which is often used in conventional mail processing apparatuses.

13 to 16 are views showing display examples of the mail information output unit. In FIG. 13, the display unit 90 is
Folder list display area 91, mail list display area 9
It has three areas of 2 and a mail content display area 93.

In the folder list display area 91, a list of folders prepared for classifying mails is displayed. In the mail list display area 92, the mail index data file corresponding to the folder selected in the folder list display area 91 is analyzed, and the list information of the mails in the folder is displayed. The detailed display method will be described later. Detailed contents of the mail selected in the mail list display area 92 are displayed in the mail content display area 93.

Here, as the display method of the mail list display area in the selected folder, a method of displaying each mail and information cut out from the mail in a tree format in the mail list display area (see display example 2 in FIG. 14) and , A method of displaying cutout information in a thumbnail format in the mail list display area (see display example 3 in FIG. 15), a method of displaying the cutout information one after another according to an input from a button or the like (see display example 4 in FIG. 16), cutout information unit Various methods are conceivable, such as a method of displaying each for several seconds in sequence.

Further, it is desirable that the above-mentioned display system be automatically switched by analyzing a mail header or the like, or manually switched. For example, in the present embodiment, the mail data 21 is assumed to be text data, but when the mail data 21 is image data, if the above-mentioned thumbnail format display method is used, the contents can be grasped at a glance. Management and operation become easy for the user.

17 and 18 are views showing a display example of moving the cut-out information. FIG. 17 shows a display example before the operation and FIG. 18 shows a display example after the operation. As shown in FIG. 17 and FIG. 18, each release information extraction is moved to the mail “release information extraction from A-NEWS”. If the cutout information can be reorganized within one mail or between a plurality of arbitrary mails, more flexible and efficient mail management can be performed.
This can be realized by the data manipulation of the mail index file described above.

With reference to FIG. 12, when the deletion of the cutout information i122 is instructed, the block of i122 in the mail index data file may be deleted, and the order of the cutout information i122 and i123 may be instructed. If so, the i122 block and the i123 block in the mail index data file may be exchanged. The same applies when the reorganization of the cutout information is instructed between arbitrary plural mails, and the processing in block units may be performed on the mail index data corresponding to the mails to be reorganized (FIG. 19). reference).

FIG. 19 is a diagram showing an example of movement of cutout information in mail index data. The mail index data surrounded by the broken line in FIG. 19 is moved in units of cutout information. If not only the cut-out information unit but also one mail as a whole is regarded as one block, mails can be combined by the same process.

Further, it is desirable that various processes relating to the mail processing can be performed not only in the unit of one mail but also in the unit of cut-out information. As a result, for example, in the conventional mail processing device, it was necessary to select a necessary part from the contents of the original mail or delete an unnecessary part in the process of replying or forwarding, but the trouble was reduced. It can be expected that the operability will be improved. This can be realized by extracting and processing only the contents of the specified part from the mail body based on the index data. Hereinafter, this process will be described.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart showing the processing at the time of reply and transfer. First, when the cutout information is selected in step S31, the text data of the selected cutout information is acquired by referring to the mail index data 22 including the part, and the text data obtained in step S32 is used. The target processing is performed and this flow is ended.
In this way, based on the index data, by extracting only the contents of the specified part from the mail body and performing the desired processing, you can select the necessary parts from the mail contents and delete the unnecessary parts. It can be reduced to improve operability.

FIG. 21 is a flow chart showing a search process capable of searching in cut-out information units. First, in step S41, one mail is focused on in order from the search target mail group, and in step S42, it is determined whether or not the unit of search processing is one mail. When the unit of search processing is one mail, the mail index data 22 is referred to in step S43, and the entire data of the focused mail is acquired. Next, it is checked whether or not the data obtained in step S44 includes a search character string, and if the data is included, the mail is recorded as "mail containing the search character string" and the process proceeds to step S48.

In step S42, the unit of search processing is 1
When the mail is not set as one unit, the mail index data 22 is referred to in step S45, and the data of each cutout information is sequentially acquired from the focused mail. Next, it is checked whether or not the data obtained in step S46 includes the search character string, and if it is included, the cutout information is recorded as “cutout information including the search character string”. Next, in step S47, it is determined whether or not all the cut-out information in one mail has been checked, and if not all checked, step S45.
Then, the above process is repeated. If all the cut-out information in one mail has been checked, the process proceeds to step S48.

FIG. 22 is a diagram for explaining the effect of performing the search process in units of cut-out information, and FIG. 22 (a) shows a case where the unit of the search process is one mail in FIG. 22 (b).
Shows a case where each cut-out information unit is sent by one mail unit. When searching for "topics including" A "and" B "", if the unit of search processing is 1 mail, both mail 1 and mail 2 will be hit (Figs. 22 (a) (b)).
reference). On the other hand, according to the search processing flow of FIG. 21, if each cut-out information unit is sent in units of one mail, “topics including“ A ”and“ B ”” will be displayed as shown in FIG. When you want to find it, you can search only Email 2. In this way, in the search process, the target of the process can be set not only in the unit of one mail but also in the unit of cut-out information, so that the search result less affected by the data other than the searched part can be obtained.

As described above, the electronic mail processing device 1 according to the present embodiment has the mail data 21, the mail index data 22, and the mail information cutting rule data 23.
And a data storage unit 20 that stores information, an information cutout unit 30 that cuts out information from the mail data 21 based on the mail information cutout rule data 23, a mail analysis unit 41, and a cutout rule data generation unit 42. 23, a cutout rule data operation unit 40 for performing operations such as creation and correction, an input unit 50 for a user to input various instructions, and a mail list output unit 61 for outputting a mail data list based on the mail index data 22. And an e-mail content output unit 62 for outputting the e-mail content based on the e-mail data 21, a communication unit 70 for transmitting and receiving e-mail, and a control unit 10 for controlling the above-mentioned units. Set up a cutout rule by referring / analyzing, and according to the cutout rule, in one or more mails. With cut out Murrell information, and then, is managed collectively cut out information, in understandable form for the user, it is possible to more control the information contained in the mail. Further, regarding the transmission / reception of the mail data, there is an advantage that the introduction is easy, without depending on the environment of the transmission side, as in the conventional example.

The electronic mail processing device according to the above-mentioned embodiment can be applied to the information equipment such as the portable information terminal as described above, but of course the invention is not limited to this. If so, it can be applied to all devices (for example, mobile mobile terminals and pagers). Further, the electronic mail processing device may be incorporated as a data communication function of a personal digital assistant such as a PDA or a personal computer.

The mail information cutting rule is not limited to the examples shown in FIGS. 5 to 9 and any kind of data may be used. Further, although the name of the electronic mail processing device is used in the present embodiment, this is for convenience of description, and it goes without saying that the electronic mail processing device and the receiving device may be used.

Further, in the above embodiment, an example in which the output unit of the electronic mail processing device is applied to the display device has been described, but any device and method may be used as long as it is an output unit for outputting a mail, for example, It is also applicable to color printers and electrophotographic copying machines. Further, any information may be output by switching the output function according to conditions such as a flag added to the mail, header information of the mail, or a keyword. Further, the type of each part constituting the electronic mail processing device, the type of memory, the method of displaying a message on the display screen, etc. are not limited to the above-described embodiment.

The electronic mail processing device described above is also realized by a program for operating the processing device. This program is stored in a computer-readable recording medium. In the present invention, as the recording medium, the main memory itself may be a program medium, or a program reading device is provided as an external storage device, and the program medium can be read by inserting the recording medium therein. May be. In either case, the stored program is C
It may be configured to be accessed and executed by the PU,
Alternatively, in any case, the program may be read, and the read program may be downloaded to a program storage area (not shown) and the program may be executed. It is assumed that this download program is stored in the main body device in advance.

Here, the program medium is a recording medium which can be separated from the main body, and is, for example, a PC card (SRAM card), a tape system such as a magnetic tape or a cassette tape, and a floppy (registered trademark) disk. Disk such as hard disk and hard disk, CD-ROM / M
Disk systems for optical disks such as O / MD / DVD, card systems such as IC cards (including memory cards) / optical cards,
Alternatively, it may be a medium that fixedly carries a program, including a semiconductor memory such as a mask ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, and flash ROM.

Further, in the present embodiment, since the system configuration is such that a communication network including the Internet can be connected, it may be a medium that carries the program fluidly so as to download the program from the communication network. . When the program is downloaded from the communication network in this way, the program for downloading may be stored in the main body device in advance, or may be installed from another recording medium. Further, the content stored in the recording medium is not limited to the program and may be data.

[0059]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to manage the information contained in the mail in a finer form in a format that is easy for the user to understand.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing registration processing of an information cutout rule of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing information segmentation rule candidate generation of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of mail data of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of candidate generation of an information cutout rule of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of generating candidates for an information cutout rule of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of generation of information extraction rule candidates in the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of generation of information extraction rule candidates in the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of generating information extraction rule candidates in the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a preview function of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing an information cutting process of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of mail index data of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a display example of a mail information output unit of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a display example of a mail information output unit of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing a display example of a mail information output unit of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a display example of a mail information output unit of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing a display example of moving cutout information in the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a display example of moving cutout information in the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 19 is a diagram showing an example of movement of cutout information in mail index data of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 20 is a reply of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.
It is a flowchart which shows the process at the time of transfer.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart showing a search process capable of performing a search in cut-out information units of the electronic mail processing device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 22 is a diagram for explaining the effect of performing the search processing of the electronic mail processing device of the present embodiment in units of cut-out information.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 E-mail processing device 10 Control unit (information management means) 20 data storage unit (cutout rule storage means) 21 Mail data 22 Mail index data 23 Mail information cutout rule data 30 Information cutout unit (information cutout means) 40 Cutting rule data operation unit 41 Email Analysis Department 42 Cutout rule data generator 50 Input section 60 Output unit (output means) 61 Mail list output section 62 Email content output section 70 Communication unit 71 Transmitter 72 Receiver 80 bus

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An electronic mail processing device for processing a received electronic mail, wherein a cutting rule storage means for storing an information cutting rule for cutting out information contained in the electronic mail, and an electronic mail according to the stored information cutting rule. An electronic mail process comprising: an information cutting-out unit that cuts out the information included in the mail; an output unit that outputs the cut-out information; and an information management unit that manages the cut-out information in a predetermined unit. apparatus. 2. A plurality of types of output means are provided, and information is output by switching the plurality of types of output means according to conditions such as output designation information added to a mail, header information of a mail, or a predetermined keyword. The electronic mail processing device according to claim 1, wherein 3. The information cutout unit cuts out information contained in a plurality of mails, and the information management unit manages the information cutouts in the plurality of mails. E-mail processing device described. 4. The electronic mail processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising processing means for performing processing such as transfer or search with the cut out information as one unit. 5. An electronic mail processing device for processing an electronic mail received by a computer, a cutting rule storing means for storing an information cutting rule for cutting out information contained in the electronic mail, and the stored information cutting rule. According to the above, an electronic mail process including an information cutting-out unit that cuts out information included in an electronic mail, an output unit that outputs the cut-out information, and an information management unit that collectively manages the cut-out information in a predetermined unit. A computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein a program for causing a computer to execute the device. 6. An electronic mail processing device for processing an electronic mail received by a computer, a cutting rule storing means for storing an information cutting rule for cutting out information contained in the electronic mail, and the stored information cutting rule. According to the above, an electronic mail process including an information cutting-out unit that cuts out information included in an electronic mail, an output unit that outputs the cut-out information, and an information management unit that collectively manages the cut-out information in a predetermined unit. A program that causes a computer to execute the device.