PRESENTING E-MAIL ON A TOUCH DEVICE

• US 20130332850A1
• Filed: 10/08/2012
• Published: 12/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Bovet, Simon I., Baray, Cristobal, Lemay, Stephen O.
• Granted Patent: US 9,245,259 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/752
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04803 Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0412 Digitisers structurally integrated in a display
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes

Abstract

Messages are presented so as to make effective use of the display area to convey information to the user. For example, message content of primary interest to the user (e.g., new content) can be distinguished from secondary content (e.g., content quoted from a previous message), and the message can be initially displayed with the secondary content hidden using an expandable visual indicator that the user can expand to reveal the secondary content. Different elements within a message, such as textual content and graphical content elements, can be scaled independently using magnification factors optimized for each element.

Claims

1. A method for presenting a message to a user, the method comprising:

receiving, at an electronic device, a first user input selecting a message to view, the selected message including a primary content portion and a secondary content portion;

in response to the first user input, displaying, on a display of the electronic device, an initial representation of the selected message that includes the primary content portion and an expandable visual element indicating that the selected message includes a secondary content portion, the expandable visual element being located within the representation at a position corresponding to a position of the secondary content portion relative to the primary content portion within the message;

receiving, at the electronic device, a second user input indicating that the expandable visual element should be expanded; and

in response to the second user input, expanding, by the electronic device, the expandable visual element to reveal the secondary content portion.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the expandable visual element includes a rendering of an accordion-like fold.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the selected message is a reply e-mail message replying to a prior e-mail message;

the primary content portion contains content that is original in the reply e-mail message; and

the secondary content portion contains content that was included in the prior e-mail message.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the reply e-mail message includes a plurality of primary content portions interleaved with a plurality of secondary content portions;

the expandable visual element is displayed to represent only a first one of the secondary content portions; and

subsequent secondary content portions are displayed in the initial representation.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the second user input includes a dragging gesture performed on a touch-sensitive input surface of the electronic device.

6. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with program instructions that, when executed by a processor cause the processor to execute a method comprising:

analyzing a message to distinguish a primary content portion and a secondary content portion;

displaying a representation of the message that includes the primary content portion and an expandable visual element indicating that the selected message includes a secondary content portion, the expandable visual element being located within the representation at a position corresponding to a position of the secondary content portion relative to the primary content portion within the message;

receiving a first user input indicating that the expandable visual element should be expanded; and

in response to the first user input, expanding the expandable visual element to reveal the secondary content portion.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 wherein analyzing the message includes:

detecting a tag indicating that a portion of the message contains quoted content; and

identifying the quoted content as the secondary content portion.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7 wherein displaying the message includes disregarding one or more trailing blank lines within the quoted content.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 wherein analyzing the message includes identifying a plurality of primary content portions interleaved with a plurality of secondary content portions and wherein the displayed representation of the message includes a plurality of expandable visual elements, each one of the expandable visual elements corresponding to one of the plurality of secondary content portions.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein in response to the first user input, all of the expandable visual elements are expanded.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9 wherein expanding the expandable visual element includes:

determining, based on the first user input, that only a first one of the plurality of expandable visual indicators should be expanded; and

expanding the first one of the plurality of expandable visual elements.

12. An electronic device comprising:

a touchscreen display; and

a processor coupled to the touchscreen display and configured to;

receive, via the touchscreen display, a first user input selecting a message to view, the selected message including a primary content portion and a secondary content portion;

display, in response to the first user input, an initial representation of the selected message on the touchscreen display, wherein the initial representation includes the primary content portion and an expandable visual element indicating that the selected message includes a secondary content portion, the expandable visual element being located within the representation at a position corresponding to a position of the secondary content portion relative to the primary content portion within the message;

receive, via the touchscreen display, a second user input indicating that the expandable visual element should be expanded; and

expand, in response to the second user input, the expandable visual element to reveal the secondary content.

13. The electronic device of claim 12 wherein the second user input includes a dragging gesture and the processor is further configured to gradually expand the expandable visual element in coordination with the dragging gesture from an initial state toward a fully expanded state.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 wherein the processor is further configured such that if the dragging gesture is released before the expandable visual element reaches the fully expanded state, the expandable visual element returns to the initial state.

15. The electronic device of claim 12 wherein the selected message was sent to a plurality of recipients and the initial representation of the selected message includes a condensed header that lists a subset of the recipients of the selected message.

16. The electronic device of claim 15 wherein the initial representation of the selected message further includes a control icon touchable by a user to instruct the electronic device to expand the condensed header into a full header that lists all of the recipients of the selected e-mail message.

17. A method for presenting a message to a user, the method comprising:

receiving, at an electronic device, a first user input selecting a message to view, the selected message including a text content portion and a graphical content element;

determining a first magnification factor for displaying the text content portion;

determining a second magnification factor for displaying the graphical content element, wherein the second magnification factor is determined independently of the first magnification factor; and

displaying the selected message in response to the first user input, wherein displaying the selected message includes displaying the text content portion at the first magnification factor and displaying the graphical content element at the second magnification factor.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the first magnification factor is selected based at least in part on a text size specified by a user preference.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein displaying the text content portion at the first magnification factor includes presenting the first text portion as a plurality of lines of text wherein the length of each line is less than or equal to a width of the message display area.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein the second magnification factor is selected such that a width of the graphical content element as displayed is less than or equal to the width of the message display area.

21. An electronic device comprising:

a user interface having a display and a user input device; and

a processor coupled to the user interface, the processor configured to;

receive a first user input selecting a message to view, the selected message including a text content portion and a graphical content element; and

display the selected message in response to the first user input, wherein displaying the selected message includes displaying the text content portion at a first magnification factor and displaying the graphical content element at a second magnification factor, wherein the first magnification factor and the second magnification factor are different.

22. The electronic device of claim 21 wherein the processor is further configured to determine the first magnification factor based at least in part on a text size specified by a user preference and to determine the second magnification factor based on a width of the graphical content element and a width of the message display area.

23. The electronic device of claim 22 wherein the message includes a plurality of graphical content elements and the processor is further configured to determine an element-specific magnification factor for each one of the plurality of graphical elements, each element-specific magnification factor being determined independently of each other element-specific magnification factor and independently of the first magnification factor.

24. The electronic device of claim 22 wherein the message includes a plurality of graphical content elements and the processor is further configured to determine a single second magnification factor to be applied to all of the graphical content elements.

25. The electronic device of claim 21 wherein the graphical content element is included as quoted content within the message, wherein the message also includes a primary content portion, and wherein the processor is further configured to:

display the selected message in an initial representation that includes the primary content portion and an expandable visual element indicating that the selected message includes quoted content, the expandable visual element being located within the representation at a position corresponding to a position of the quoted content relative to the primary content within the message; and

in response to a second user input, expand the expandable visual element to reveal the quoted content, including the graphical content element, wherein the graphical content element is displayed at the second magnification factor when the expandable visual element is fully expanded.