Electronic mail distribution via a network of computer controlled display terminals with interactive display interfaces enabling senders/receivers to view sequences of only text from sequences of e-mail having same headers

Abstract

A display interface at a sending/receiving display terminal including the conventional implementations for reading and sending E-Mail with an implementation for organizing the text content of a chronological sequence of E-Mail documents having the same subject identifier or header. There is designated a subject identifier of one received electronic mail as a message text sequencer and there is an implementation at a receiving display station for enabling the display of a chronological sequence of the text of said received message and the text of all subsequent messages having said designated subject identifier. The designation of the identifier may automatically designate a subject identifier as a message text sequencer based upon user predetermined attributes. Such an implementation for automatically designating may include the combination of means for counting the number of messages having the same subject identifier within a predetermined period in combination with means for automatically designating the same subject identifier when said counted number reaches a predetermined value. In its simplest application, the predetermined value may be two, e.g. even two consecutive messages.