Dynamic electronic mail facility for applications executing in an integrated operating environment

• US 5,805,811 A
• Filed: 03/06/1996
• Issued: 09/08/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/1994
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Cascabel Research LLC
• Original Assignee: Wang Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Pratt, John M., Sager, Garry W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pan, Daniel H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): FOLLANSBEE, JOHN A
• Application Number:
  US08/611,957
• Time in Patent Office: 916 Days
• Field of Search: 395/200.34, 395/200.36, 395/682
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

An electronic mail facility for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to applications programs in a computer system having an integrated operating environment and connected to a plurality of electronic mail systems and including mail modules providing a drivers and interfaces to the mail systems, an administrative module, a user interface and a data interface. The administrative module includes a mail system manger including a mail system detector for detecting each of the mail systems and a mail system table for selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules and an application program manager for detecting the invocation of an application program to be supported by the electronic mail facility. The user interface includes user interface modifiers, each including a user interface representation of an electronic mail operation and an electronic mail procedure, including resources, scripts and macros, and drag and drop icons. The user interface is to an application invocation by modifying the user interface of the executable copy of the invoked application program to include the user interface representation of an electronic mail operation. The modified executable copy of the application program is responsive to a user invocation of an electronic mail operation for invoking the corresponding electronic mail procedure. The data interfaces include the data transfer functions of the integrated operating environment and are responsive to the mail procedures for communicating data from the application program to the current mail interface module.

Claims

1. In a computer system including a plurality of permanently resident application programs having a corresponding plurality of application user interfaces, a memory and processor for storing and executing executable copies of the application programs, and an integrated operating environment and connected to a plurality of electronic mail systems, an electronic mail facility for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs not previously having a direct electronic mail capability, comprising:

a plurality of electronic mail modules, each electronic mail module corresponding to an electronic mail system and providing a driver and interface for communication with the corresponding electronic mail system,

an administrative module, including

a mail system manager for selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules,

an application program manager for automatically detecting an invocation of an application program by a user for execution of the application program and automatically generating an invocation output indicating the invocation and identity of the invoked application program that is to be automatically provided with an electronic mail capability by the electronic mail facility wherein the electronic mail capability is a new functionality to the invoked application program,

a mail facility user interface, including

a plurality of user interface modifiers, each including a user interface representation of an electronic mail operation and an electronic mail procedure,

the mail facility user interface being automatically responsive to an invocation output of the application program manager for automatically modifying one of the corresponding application user interfaces of an executable copy of the invoked application program to include the user interface representation of an electronic mail operation, wherein

the executable copy of an application program having a modified user interface is responsive to a user invocation of an electronic mail operation for automatically invoking a corresponding electronic mail procedure, and

a data interface responsive to an electronic mail procedure for communicating data from the application program to a current mail interface module.

2. The electronic mail facility of claim 1, the mail system manger further comprising:

a mail system detector for detecting each of the electronic mail systems connected from the computer system, and

a mail system table connected from the mail system detector for storing electronic mail system entries, each electronic mail system entry corresponding to and identifying an electronic mail system connected from the computer system,

the mail system table providing an output for selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules.

3. The electronic mail facility of claim 1, the application program manager further comprising:

an application program detector for detecting application programs installed in the system,

an application program table connected from the application program detector for storing application program entries, each application program entry corresponding to and identifying an application program to be supported by the electronic mail facility, and

an application program monitor for detecting the invocation of an application program for execution and generating an invocation output indicating the invocation and identity of an invoked application program supported by the electronic mail facility.

4. The electronic mail facility of claim 1 wherein each user interface modifier corresponds to an application program to be supported by the electronic mail facility.

5. The electronic mail facility of claim 4 wherein the user interface modifiers include user interface modification resources for modifying the user interface resources of the corresponding application program.

6. The electronic mail facility of claim 4 wherein the user interface modifiers include scripts and macros.

7. The electronic mail facility of claim 4 wherein the user interface modifiers include icons representing target destinations for drop and drag data transfer operations.

8. The electronic mail facility of claim 1 wherein the data interfaces include the data transfer functions of the integrated operating environment.

9. The electronic mail facility of claim 1 wherein each electronic mail system includes a user database for storing the identities and locations of users connected from the electronic mail system and the administrative module further comprises:

a recipient selector for

reading and displaying the contents of the user database of the electronic mail system corresponding to the current electronic mail module, wherein

the recipient selector is responsive to a user input selecting at least one user from the user database of the electronic mail system corresponding to the current electronic mail module for directing the electronic mail module to execute an electronic mail operation with respect to the selected at least one user.

10. In a computer system including a plurality of permanently resident application programs having a corresponding plurality of application user interfaces, a memory and processor for storing and executing executable copies of the application programs, and an integrated operating environment and connected to a plurality of electronic mail systems, a method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs not previously having a direct electronic mail capability, comprising the steps of:

providing a plurality of electronic mail modules, each electronic mail module corresponding to an electronic mail system and providing a driver and interface for communication with the corresponding electronic mail system,

providing a plurality of user interface modifiers, each including a user interface representation of an electronic mail operation and an electronic mail procedure

by operation of a mail system manager, automatically selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules,

by operation of an application program manager, automatically detecting an invocation of an application program by a user for execution of the application program and automatically generating an invocation output indicating the invocation and identity of the invoked application program that is to be automatically provided with an electronic mail capability by the electronic mail facility wherein the electronic mail capability is a new functionality to the invoked application program,

by operation of a user interface being automatically responsive to an invocation output of the application program manager for automatically modifying one of the corresponding application user interfaces of an executable copy of the invoked application program to include a user interface representation of an electronic mail operation, wherein

the executable copy of an application program having a modified user interface is responsive to a user invocation of an electronic mail operation for invoking a corresponding electronic mail procedure, and

by operation of a data interface responsive to an electronic mail procedure for communicating data from the application program to a current mail interface module.

11. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 10, wherein the step of selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules further comprises the steps of:

by operation of a mail system detector, detecting each of the electronic mail systems connected from the computer system,

constructing a mail system table connected from the mail system detector for storing electronic mail system entries, each electronic mail system entry corresponding to and identifying an electronic mail system connected from the computer system, and

by operation of the mail system table, providing an output for selecting and enabling a current one of the electronic mail modules.

12. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 10, wherein the steps of detecting the invocation of an application program for execution and generating an invocation output indicating the invocation and identity of an invoked application program supported by the electronic mail facility further comprise the steps of:

by operation of an application program detector, detecting application programs installed in the system,

constructing an application program table connected from the application program detector for storing application program entries, each application program entry corresponding to and identifying an application program to be supported by the electronic mail facility, and

by operation of an application program monitor, detecting the invocation of an application program for execution and generating an invocation output indicating the invocation and identity of an invoked application program supported by the electronic mail facility.

13. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 10 wherein each user interface modifier corresponds to an application program to be supported by the electronic mail facility.

14. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 13 wherein the user interface modifiers include user interface modification resources for modifying the user interface resources of the corresponding application program.

15. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 13 wherein the user interface modifiers include scripts and macros.

16. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 13 wherein the user interface modifiers include icons representing target destinations for drop and drag data transfer operations.

17. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 10 wherein the data interfaces include the data transfer functions of the integrated operating environment.

18. The method for dynamically adding a direct electronic mail capability to selected ones of the applications programs of claim 10 wherein each electronic mail system includes a user database for storing the identities and locations of users connected from the electronic mail system, further comprising the steps of:

reading and displaying the contents of the user database of the electronic mail system corresponding to the current electronic mail module, and

responsive to a user input, selecting at least one user from the user database of the electronic mail system corresponding to the current electronic mail module and generating an output directing the electronic mail module to execute an electronic mail operation with respect to the selected at least one user.