E-mail device and portable terminal device using this

【0001】

[Technical field to which the invention belongs]

The present invention relates to an e-mail device and a mobile terminal device using the same, and more particularly to an e-mail device capable of transmitting an e-mail with a file attached and a mobile terminal device using the same.

【0002】

[Conventional technology]

[Patent Document 1]

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-332904 [0003]

Mobile terminal devices such as mobile phones and PHS have a mail communication function in addition to a voice call function, and can send and receive mail. Furthermore, recently, as disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example, an image or music file is attached to an e-mail so that the other party can grasp information that cannot be transmitted by text alone, either visually or audibly. It is also possible.

【0004】

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

By the way, when sending an e-mail, of course, the destination address must be set, but in that case, basically, the user operates the key to enter the destination address each time the e-mail is sent. It has become. However, it goes without saying that this method is very troublesome.

【0005】

Therefore, as disclosed in Patent Document 1, a method of selecting a destination address from an address book is performed. However, even with this method, if the number of registrants to the address book is large, the operation burden on the user is heavy, and the method is not sufficiently satisfactory.

【0006】

[Purpose of Invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and provides an e-mail device capable of setting a destination address when sending an e-mail with a file attached to reduce the operational burden on the user, and a mobile terminal device using the e-mail device. The purpose is.

【0007】

[Means for solving problems]

The e-mail device of the present invention is an e-mail device including a transmission history storage unit for storing an e-mail transmission history and a mail creation means for creating a mail with a file attached, and the file is attached. When entering the destination address on the screen for composing an email, the file detection means for detecting the file type and the address to which a file of the same type as the file type detected by the file detection means is attached are described. It is characterized by having an address extraction means for extracting from the transmission history storage unit and rearranging the addresses in descending order of the number of transmissions.

【0008】

Such an e-mail device of the present invention has a candidate display means for displaying candidates in the order in which the addresses are sorted by the address extraction means, and a selection for selecting a desired address from the addresses displayed by the candidate display means. It is preferable to further have means and setting means for setting a desired address selected by the selection means as the destination address. Alternatively, it is preferable to further have an address designating means for designating the address having the highest priority among the addresses sorted by the address extracting means as the destination address.

【0009】

Further, the present invention is characterized in that a mobile terminal device is configured by mounting the above-mentioned e-mail device.

【0010】

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Next, an embodiment of the e-mail device according to the present invention and the mobile terminal device using the same will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of a mobile terminal device using the e-mail device of the present invention. This mobile terminal device includes a control unit 11, an imaging unit 12, a wireless unit 13, a display unit 14, an operation unit 15, and a storage unit 16.

【0011】

The control unit 11 controls the entire mobile terminal device, and particularly includes a file detection unit 111, an address extraction means 112, and a candidate display means 113. The file detection unit 111 detects the type of the file attached to the mail when the destination address is input on the screen for creating the mail with the file attached. The address extraction means 112 extracts an address in the transmission history to which a file of the same type as the file type detected by the file detection unit 111 is attached from the transmission history storage unit 161 described later, and extracts the extracted address as the number of transmissions. Sort in descending order of. The candidate display means 113 displays the extracted addresses as candidates on the display unit 14 in the order sorted by the address extraction means 112.

【0012】

The image pickup unit 12 captures image information such as an image (still image) or a movie (movie) to be attached to an e-mail. The radio unit 13 is connected to the antenna 131 and controls communication with the base station. The display unit 14 is composed of an LCD, an organic EL, or the like, and displays various information. The operation unit 15 has a plurality of keys, and the user can input various information and make various settings by operating the operation unit 15.

【0013】

The storage unit 16 stores various types of information, and particularly includes a transmission history storage unit 161 and an address storage unit 162. As shown in FIG. 3A, the transmission history storage unit 161 stores the transmission date and time, the destination address, and the type of the attached file, if any, each time an email is transmitted. The address storage unit 162 stores an address book, and a plurality of cases such as the name, telephone number, and e-mail address of the other party are stored in the address book. The storage unit 16 has a storage area other than the transmission history storage unit 161 and the address storage unit 162, and the storage area includes an image file, a movie file, a downloaded music file, and a created mail captured from the imaging unit 12. Store data etc.

【0014】

The mobile terminal device configured in this way can compose an e-mail, and at that time, an image file, a movie file, or a music file can be attached to the e-mail. This file attachment mail creation method is the same as the general method. To briefly explain an example, first, the operation unit 15 is operated to set the file attachment mail creation mode, and the screen of the display unit 14 is in the text input standby state. And. Then, in this text input standby state, the operation unit 15 is operated to input the text, and the confirmation key is pressed. Then, the screen of the display unit 14 is next in the title input standby state. Therefore, the operation unit 15 is operated, then the title is input, and the confirmation key is pressed. Then, a list of image files, movie files, and music files created in advance or downloaded in advance and saved in the storage unit 16 is displayed next on the screen of the display unit 14, and a desired file is displayed from this list. Is selected and confirmed under the operation of the operation unit 15. Then, the selected file, the input text and title are integrated, and the mail with the file attached is completed and saved in the storage unit 16. Such a method of creating a file attachment mail is just an example, and various modified examples such as taking a picture with the image pickup unit 12 after inputting the text and the title and importing the image file can be considered.

【0015】

The mail with the file attached thus created is subsequently sent to the desired destination by setting the destination address and sending, but in the above-mentioned mobile terminal device, it is stored in the transmission history storage unit 161. Set the destination address from the transmission history of the sent e-mail. Moreover, by referring to the type of file attached to the e-mail to be sent, an address to which a file of the same type is attached is extracted from the transmission history storage unit 161 and the address is displayed on the screen of the display unit 14. Is displayed as a selection candidate, and the destination address is selected from the addresses. Further, when displaying the addresses extracted from the transmission history storage unit 161 as selection candidates on the screen of the display unit 14, the extracted addresses are sorted in descending order of the number of transmissions and displayed in the sorted order. Display on the screen of Part 14.

【0016】

Such a method of setting a destination address according to the first embodiment of the present invention is suitable in the following cases. That is, since the person to whom a file such as an image or music is sent as an attachment to an e-mail is usually decided, the person who has sent the same type of file in the past using the transmission history without calling from the entire address book. If the candidate address is displayed as a destination, the user's operational burden can be reduced from among the few candidates, and a desired address can be easily set with a high probability. Further, when displaying the addresses as candidates, if the addresses are displayed in descending order of the number of transmissions, the discovery of the desired address becomes faster.

【0017】

The method of setting such a destination address will be described in detail below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. When the mail to which the file is attached is saved in the storage unit 16 as described above, the destination address setting mode is set. Then, the file detection unit 111 in the control unit 11 determines whether or not there is an attached file in the mail to be sent (step S1). Then, if it is determined that there is an attached file, the file type is further detected by the file detection unit 111 (step S2). Further, an address to which a file of the same type as the detected file type is attached is extracted from the transmission history storage unit 161 by the address extraction means 112 in the control unit 11 (steps S3 to S8). Further, the extracted addresses are sorted by the address extracting means 112 in descending order of the number of transmissions (step S9), and in the sorted order, the candidate display means 113 in the control unit 11 displays the screen of the display unit 14. It is displayed as a selection candidate (step S10).

【0018】

A specific example of the operation up to this point is shown in the data table in Fig. 3 and the display example in Fig. 4. In this example, the type of file attached to the email to be sent is "jpg", that is, an image. Therefore, "jpg", that is, the address having the image file is extracted from the transmission history shown in Fig. 3 (a) as shown in Fig. 3 (b), and further, "a@xxx.ne.jp" The address was sent 3 times, the address of "d@xxx.co.jp" was sent 2 times, and the address of "c@xxx.ne.jp" was sent 1 time. As shown in c), the files are sorted in the order of "a@xxx.ne.jp", "d@xxx.co.jp", "c@xxx.ne.jp" from the top, that is, in descending order of the number of transmissions. Then, the addresses are displayed on the screen of the display unit 14 as shown in FIG. 4 in the sorted order.

【0019】

If it is determined in the first step S1 that the email to be sent does not have an attached file, the address without the attached file is extracted from the transmission history (step S11), and the number of transmissions is as described above. They are sorted in descending order (step S9) and displayed on the screen of the display unit 14 in the sorted order (step S10).

【0020】

When the addresses extracted and rearranged in this way are displayed on the screen of the display unit 14, the user operates the operation unit 15 to select and confirm the desired address (step S12). Then, the selected address is input to the destination and the destination address is set (step S13). Therefore, if the send key is subsequently pressed, the saved mail attached to the file is read from the storage unit 16 and sent to the set destination address.

【0021】

On the other hand, if there is no desired address among the addresses displayed as candidates by the candidate display means 113, the user operates the "other" item displayed on the screen of the display unit 14 together with those addresses as shown in FIG. Select and confirm by the operation of Part 15 (step S14). Then, the address book stored in the address storage unit 162 is displayed on the screen of the display unit 14 (step S15), and the destination address can be selected from this address book (step S16), and the destination address can be selected from the address book. The address is entered in the destination (step S13).

【0022】

According to the above destination address setting method, the transmission history with the same type of file as the email to be sent is used, so the user's operation burden is reduced from among the few candidates and it is high. A desired destination address can be set with a probability. Further, when displaying the addresses as candidates, the desired address can be found more quickly by displaying the addresses in descending order of the number of transmissions.

【0023】

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the mobile terminal device of the present invention. The mobile terminal device of the second embodiment has an address designation means 114 in the control unit 11 instead of the candidate display means 113 of FIG. Others are the same as those of the first embodiment of FIG. 1, and the same parts are designated by the same reference numerals and the description thereof will be omitted.

【0024】

The address designating means 114 automatically designates the address having the highest priority among the addresses sorted by the address extracting means 112, specifically, the address having the highest number of transmissions as the destination address.

【0025】

Therefore, in the second embodiment, when addresses having the same type of file as the file attached to the e-mail to be sent are extracted from the transmission history and sorted in descending order of the number of transmissions, the second embodiment is performed. As shown in step S17 of the flowchart of FIG. 6 showing the operation of the mode, the address with the highest number of transmissions, that is, the address with the highest priority is automatically input to the destination, and the destination address is automatically specified. ..

【0026】

A screen display example of the display unit 14 for automatically designating the destination address is shown in FIG. 7, and the addresses extracted from the transmission history are arranged in descending order of the number of transmissions, for example, as shown in FIG. 3 (c) described above. When changed, as shown in Fig. 7, the address with the highest number of transmissions in the address field displayed on the screen of the display unit 14 along with the title field and body field of the mail, here "a" in Fig. 3 (c) @ xxx.ne.jp "is automatically entered. After that, if the user selects and confirms the "OK" item displayed on the same screen by the operation of the operation unit 15 (step S18 in FIG. 6), the destination address is confirmed by the address entered in the destination field. (Step S19 in Figure 6).

【0027】

On the other hand, instead of "OK", when the user selects and confirms the "address change" item displayed on the same screen in step S18 of FIG. 6 by the operation of the operation unit 15, the screen of the display unit 14 is displayed. As shown in step S20 of FIG. 6, the address book is read from the address storage unit 162 and displayed, and the destination address can be selected from this address book. Then, if the destination address is selected from the address book as shown in step S21, the address is input to the destination as the destination address and confirmed as shown in step S22.

【0028】

In the flowchart of FIG. 6, since the determination step S1 to the address rearrangement step S9 (including step S11) with the attached file is the same as the flowchart of FIG. 2, the same step code is added and the description is omitted. To do.

【0029】

Then, according to such a second embodiment, the candidate is not displayed and the address having the highest priority is automatically designated as the destination address, so that the operation burden on the user can be further reduced.

【0030】

In the above-mentioned mobile terminal device, the address to which the same type of file is attached is extracted from the transmission history according to the type of file (image, movie, music, etc.) attached to the e-mail to be transmitted. However, the file type is determined by the file extension. The problem here is the correspondence between the file extension and the file type. That is, there are image files such as JPEG format (extension is .jpg) and bitmap format (extension is .bmp), and there is a problem of which extension is judged as "image". The same is true for movies and music.

【0031】

Therefore, in the above-mentioned mobile terminal device, a plurality of extensions are associated with each one file type, or the extension and the file type are associated with each other on a one-to-one basis, and the file type is selected from the file extension. to decide.

【0032】

A specific example of associating a plurality of extensions with each one file type is as follows. (JPEG format, bitmap format) Image compatible extensions: .jpg, .bmp (MPEG format, MOV format, AVI format) Movie compatible extensions: .mpg, .mov, .avi (MP3 format, WAV format) Music compatible extensions: .mp3, .wav [0033]

A specific example of a one-to-one association between an extension and a file type is as follows. JPEG format Image compatible extension: .jpg MPEG format Movie compatible extension: .mpg MP3 format Music compatible extension: .mp3 [0034]

[Effect of the invention]

As described above, according to the e-mail device of the present invention and the mobile terminal device using the e-mail device, it is possible to set the destination address when sending an e-mail with a file attached, while reducing the operational burden on the user.

[Simple explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of a mobile terminal device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the first embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram showing a data table.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the first embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram showing a screen display example of a display unit.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the mobile terminal device according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the second embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram showing a screen display example of a display unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 Control unit 111 File detection unit 112 Address extraction means 113 Candidate display means 114 Address designation means 12 Imaging unit 13 Wireless unit 14 Display unit 15 Operation unit 16 Control unit 161 Transmission history storage unit 162 Address storage unit