Abstract:
System, method and program product executed at a workstation for selecting recipients of an e-mail. The workstation displays an initial list of potential recipients of said e-mail. A user identifies to the workstation a first type of recipient to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the first type. A user identifies to the workstation a second type of recipient not to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the second type. The workstation automatically determining a final list of recipients to receive the e-mail. The final list is the recipients of the initial list which are the first type but not the second type.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
   The present invention relates generally to e-mail, and more particularly to selection of recipients of an e-mail. 
   In an early e-mail system the first line of a message contained the recipient&#39;s address. Subsequent e-mail systems and protocols have been defined by RFC (Request For Comments) documents These standards include Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), RFC 2821 and Internet Message Format (RFC 822 and RFC 2822). On the basis of the SMTP model, a user preparing a simple e-mail composes the text of the message and provides additional information which will be sent in a header of the message. The e-mail author indicates the sender name (‘From’ field in the e-mail header), and the recipients. The recipient(s) can be the name(s) of the final recipient (‘To’ field), and optionally, the names of the people that are copied (‘.Cc’ field) and the names of people that are ‘Blind Carbon Copied’ (‘.Bcc’ field). The recipient names correspond to network or “IP” addresses. 
   The e-mail author can type recipient names into the e-mail address fields or the e-mail author can select a preexisting distribution list. In some business areas such as marketing, the number of recipients (‘To’, ‘.Cc’, ‘.Bcc’) is very important and the management of the addresses can become very complex, time consuming and error prone. 
   European patent application entitled, “A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREPARING ELECTRONIC MAILS” serial number 04291949.8 filed Jul. 29, 2004 by F. Bauchot, F-X Drouet and G. Marmigere allows an e-mail author to select different recipients for different sections of the e-mail text. The European patent application uses tags in the message text to identify different sections and their corresponding recipient lists. A Selective Mail Parser in a client side e-mail management application identifies the e-mail coded with the tags and prepares the e-mail to be sent to the server side of the e-mail management application. The European patent application also discloses that if the recipient requests to Reply to the e-mail, the system will automatically identify a list of recipients to include all the recipients having a super set of the e-mail. 
   Other known tools to control a recipient list are based on Directories. Such Directories can either be a general shared Directory or a local address book. The Directories could contain distribution lists which facilitate sending of the e-mail to multi-recipients. For example, a Directory of a sales organization of a company may include a distribution list containing the e-mail addresses of all sales representatives. 
   According to SMTP, a mailbox is a virtual entity which corresponds to file storage and receives e-mail for a recipient. When it is desirable to treat several mailboxes as a single group (i.e. in a distribution list), a group construct can be used. The group construct allows the sender to indicate a named group of recipients without actually providing the individual mailbox address for each of the members of the group. When the sender creates the message, he/she can identify the name of the group or distribution list as the recipient. In response, the e-mail application operating on its workstation automatically creates a message for each member found in the group or distribution list at the envelope level. The Header of the message contains the name of the group or distribution list. 
   Another known e-mailing system allows the user to compose e-mail messages and specify lists of recipients with a text editor. The user can use a copy/paste function to select and move e-mail addresses of the e-mail and/or distribution lists to prepare a desired list of recipients in the ‘To’, ‘.Cc’ and ‘.Bcc’ fields. 
   An object of the present invention is to facilitate identification of recipients of an e-mail. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention resides in a system, method and program product executed at a workstation for selecting recipients of an e-mail. The workstation displays an initial list of potential recipients of said e-mail. A user identifies to the workstation a first type of recipient to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the first type. A user identifies to the workstation a second type of recipient not to receive the e-mail. The initial list including at least one recipient of the second type. The workstation automatically determining a final list of recipients to receive the e-mail. The final list is the recipients of the initial list which are the first type but not the second type. 
   In accordance with a feature of the present invention, the foregoing process for selecting the final list of recipients can be applied either to the complete text of an e-mail or a portion of the text of the e-mail. 
   As examples, the first type of recipient can be recipients with an e-mail address at a specified company or recipients with an e-mail address in a specified country. Likewise, the second type of recipients can be recipients with an e-mail address in a specified country. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a distributed computing system which supports the known SMTP model and includes the present invention. 
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of a client workstation and mail server of  FIG. 1  wherein the client workstation includes a client e-mail application according to the present invention. 
       FIGS. 3A and 3B  illustrates two instances of a graphical user interface according to the present invention to identify recipients of an e-mail. 
       FIG. 4  illustrates a Mail Address Management Table according to the present invention to generate a final set of stacked SMTP messages. 
       FIG. 5  is a detailed flowchart of computer programming within the workstation of  FIG. 2  to select recipients of an e-mail. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the figures.  FIG. 1  illustrates a distributed computer system which supports known SMTP for distributing e-mails according to RFC 2822. Users A 1  and A 2  at workstations  100   a  and  100   b , respectively, have mailboxes  140   a  and  140   b , respectively and are clients for mail server or Mail Transfer Agent (“MTA”)  110 . The term “workstation” as used herein comprises desk top computers, laptop computers, PDAs, computerized cell phones, and any other type of computing device or user interface therefor. Users A 3  and A 4  at workstations  100   c  and  100   d , respectively, have mailboxes  140   c  and  140   d , respectively and are clients for mail servers or Mail Transfer Agents (“MTAs”)  120  and  130 , respectively. The MTAs manage e-mail addressed to and from their local users A 1  and A 2  and remote MTAs  120  and  130  via Internet  150 . The remote MTAs themselves transfer and receive e-mail to and from their local users A 3  and A 4  and remote MTA  110  via the Internet  50 . Each user sends an e-mail to its local MTA. The e-mail comprises the message or data of the e-mail and the name(s) of recipient(s) of the e-mail. To deliver an e-mail to a local user, the MTA identifies the corresponding network address of the recipient and forwards the e-mail to the recipient&#39;s mailbox/repository  140 . The sender and recipient names correspond to their respective mailbox identifiers. 
   According to the present invention, workstation  100   a  includes a Client Mail Application program  200  (shown in  FIGS. 1 and 2 ) which includes a user agent  202  and other programming, supports the SMTP protocol and allows the User A 1  to create custom distribution lists (such as to Users A 2 , A 3  and A 4 ) based on existing distribution lists. 
     FIG. 2  illustrates in more detail the Client Mail Application  200  within the user workstation  100   a . To send and receive e-mails, the Client Mail application  200  includes a Graphical User Interface (GUI)  230  and the following functions:
         Create message function (i.e. an E-Mail composer)  250  allows access to Directories stored by the local MTA  110  or remote MTAs  120  and  130  or Directories from the local address book  257  which is the local space of the User A.   Submit message function  250  translates the message in accordance with “Internet Message Format” of RFC2822, with the coding of the body part in known MIME format. Document series RFC2045, RFC2046 and RFC2049 are relevant for this function.   SMTP Stack  260  receives the message in the right format to be submitted to the MTA using SMTP.   Read/Retrieve Message function  240  accesses the storage of the messages in Mailbox  140   a . The messages are stored in accordance with RFC2822, so GUI has to parse the message to display the message to the user.       
   In accordance with the present invention, a Selective Message Manager (“SMM”)  270  is associated with the Create message function  250 . The SMM allows the e-mail author through the GUI to manage recipient address lists and introduce in the text of the message, tags identifying a subset of an e-mail message with associated recipient address list information. The user defines with a GUI  230 , information on the text of the e-mail to be prepared and the information to build the recipient list. The SMM stores in a Mail Address Management Table (“MAMT”)  280  the information of each e-mail to be sent to a list of recipients. The recipient list and message text are then passed, in a known manner, to SMTP stack  260  for sending to the local MTA. 
   The SMM comprises a filter to either include or exclude a generic or specific set of recipient addresses. For example the sender could start from a preexisting distribution list (such as a distribution list of Sales people of a COMPANY) and exclude members belonging to a given country (*@fr.company.com).
         A first opening tag can take the following format:
 
&lt;SelSec [attributes]&gt;,
 
where [attributes] represents a list of either mandatory or optional attributes specified with this tag. Such attributes can be for example:
   “Id=xxx” for specifying an identifier   “Color=xxx” for specifying an associated color   “To=xxx” for specifying a filter on the “To” distribution list   “Cc=xxx” for specifying a filter on the “Cc” distribution list   “Bcc=xxx” for specifying a filter on the “Bcc” distribution list   “FilterIN=xxx” for specifying an including filter.   “FilterOUT=xxx” for specifying an excluding filter.   “Expand=xxx” for specifying if distribution lists must be expanded or not.   “Exception=xxx” for specifying exceptions   “List=xxx” for specifying the resulting recipient address list
 
A second closing flag can take the following format:
 
&lt;/SelSec&gt;
       

     FIGS. 3A and 3B  are two instances of the graphical user interface when a user/author composes the text of a message and then operates the ‘selective menu’ according to the preferred embodiment to select the recipients of the e-mail. 
   Once the author edits the text of the message using the conventional e-mail composer tools, the author identifies and characterizes the sections of the e-mail which will be selectively sent to a subset of the message recipients. For example, an e-mail has been built for delivery to the following people/recipients:
         In the “To:” list: Albert_Einstein@us.company.com, Leonardo_da_Vinci@it.company.com, Louis_Pasteur@fr.company.com, Nicolas_Copernic@pl.company.com   In the “Cc:” list: Thomas_Edison@competitor.com   In the “Bcc:” list: Max_planck@hotmail.com, Isaac_Newton@hotmail.com       

   In this example, the message text is composed of a main section that should be sent to all recipients, plus three special sections that should be sent to selected recipients. These special sections will be called sections A, B and C. Assuming that sections A and B should be sent to the same set of people and the following rules apply: 
   Section A/B Audience: 
   
       
       
         
           Recipients must not be blind carbon copied, 
           Recipients must belong to the COMPANY, 
           Recipients must not be US citizens, and 
           Recipients must be physicians. 
         
       
     
  
   Assuming that section C should be sent only to Isaac Newton. 
   Assuming that the message author works first with section A, second with section B and third with section C, the message author will typically perform the following steps:
     1. The message author selects with the pointing device the text corresponding to section A.   2. The message author clicks with the pointing device on a specific entry entitled “Selective Mail” within the “Text” drop-down menu of the message composer GUI. This action automatically opens a “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 , as shown on  FIG. 3A . This dialog box has default settings, such as:
       The check boxes  312 ,  313  and  314  are all filled with a check mark.   The entry fields  302  and  303  are empty.   The left most radio button of the set  305  is selected.   
       

   Accordingly, the section recipient list box  311  shows that all the members of the message are eligible for the current section (all shown with yellow background color associated with the left most radio button  305 ). 
   At the same time that the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  is opened, the text selected by the user receives a blinking background color identical to the one associated with the selected radio button  305 , yellow in the example.
     3 The message author uses the pointing device and the keyboard to update the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  default settings, in order to reflect the targeted audience for the section A. This corresponds to the following actions:
       Deselecting the check box  312 , so that recipients present within the “Bcc:” list will not get this section A. The result is that the e-mail addresses of Max Planck and Isaac Newton are no longer with a yellow background color in the recipient list box  311 .   Filling the “Filter IN” entry field  302  with the wild card *@*.company.com all the recipients belonging to the COMPANY organization. The result is that the e-mail address of Thomas Edison is no longer with a yellow background color in the recipient list box  311 .   Filling the “Filter OUT” entry field  303  with the wild card *@us.* to discard all the US based recipients. The result is that the e-mail address of Albert Einstein is no longer with a yellow background color in the recipient list box  311 .   Clicking with the pointing device on the e-mail address of Louis Pasteur in the recipient list box  311  to turn its background color from yellow to dark blue (meaning that it is deselected). At the end of this step, the recipient list box  311  contains only two e-mail addresses with yellow background color: Leonardo da Vinci and Nicolas Copernic, according to the rules specified above for section A recipients. This is illustrated by the  FIG. 3B .   Clicking on the “Save” push-button  307  in order to memorize the different settings specified for the first list of recipients associated with the section A, and identified through the color yellow.   Clicking either on the window closing icon  315  or on the push-button “Close”  306  has the effect of closing the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 . When this is done, the section A within the whole message text appears with a background color set to yellow (no longer flashing), while the corresponding recipient names appear also with yellow background color within the destination lists “To:”, “Cc:” and “Bcc:”.   
       4. The message author selects with the pointing device the text corresponding to the section B. In the following steps, the message author will take advantage of the settings for section A as both sections A and B should receive the same audience.   5. The message author clicks with the pointing device on a specific entry entitled “Selective Mail” within the Text drop-down menu of the message composer GUI. This action automatically opens a “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 , as shown on  FIG. 3B . Here the settings already done for the yellow list are automatically recalled, so that the message author does not have to redo them. The selected text background color is turned to yellow and is flashing.   6 Clicking on the “Close” push-button  306  to close the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 . When this is done, the section B within the whole message text appears with a background color set to yellow, no longer flashing, while the corresponding recipient names appear also with yellow background color within the destination lists “To:”, “Cc:” and “Bcc:”.   7 The message author selects with the pointing device the text corresponding to the section C.   8 The message author clicks with the pointing device on a specific entry entitled “Selective Mail” within the Text drop-down menu of the message composer GUI. This action automatically opens a “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 , as shown on  FIG. 3B . Here the settings already done for the yellow list are automatically recalled, so that the message author does not have to redo them. The selected text background color is turned to yellow and is flashing. The next steps consist of defining a new list (associated with another color which is blue) corresponding to the audience of section C.   9 The message author clicks on the radio button  305  below the blue pad, so that the blue color is associated with the list of recipients corresponding to the section C. The result is first to reset to default values the setting of the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 , and second that the section C is now flashing with blue as background color.   10. Then the message author uses the pointing device and the keyboard to update the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  current settings (which were set to default values), to reflect the targeted audience for the section C. This can be done in different ways, for example, to have all the check boxes  312 ,  313  and  314  filled with a check mark, to have the “Filter IN” entry field  302  filled with the address Isaac Newton@hotmail.com, or to have the “Filter OUT” entry field  303  left void.   11. Finally the message author clicks on the “Save” push-button  307  to memorize the different settings specified for the list of recipients associated to the section C. When this is done, section C within the whole message text appears with a background color set to blue (no longer flashing), while the corresponding recipient name appears also with blue background color.   12. The last step for this selective e-mail definition is for the message author to close the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  by clicking on the button  315 .   

   When all these definitions are done, the message is filled with relevant tags (not visible to the message author) specifying for each section the associated recipient list and the associated settings entered through the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 . Each of these lists is uniquely identified by an Identifier, recorded within a Mail Address Manager Table (“MAMT”), as described below with reference to  FIG. 4 . 
   Afterwards, if the message author clicks on the specific entry entitled “Selective Mail” within the “Text” drop-down menu of the message composer GUI, different cases can appear:
         If the current position of the cursor is within a section already defined, then the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  is opened, and displays the settings corresponding to the list associated with the section within which the current cursor is located.   If the current position of the cursor is outside a section already defined, and if some text is currently selected, then the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  is opened, and displays the settings corresponding to the list associated with the last defined section. This allows the message author to define the current selection as a section and to associate with it either a previously defined list or a new list of recipients.   If the current position of the cursor is outside a previously defined section, and if no text is selected, then a pop-up window is displayed to warn the user that no selective e-mail section definition can be done in this case.       

   Regardless of the potential message, the author opens the “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301 . Each time the current cursor position is within a previously defined section (that is displayed with a specific background color), the associated list of recipients with the lists “To:”, “Cc:” and “Bcc:” are highlighted by using the same color for background. 
   The following is not illustrated in the foregoing example. The “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  contains a check mark “Expand lists”  310  allowing the user to expand any list specified with the recipient list. By doing so, it allows the user to differentiate, if needed, between members of a given distribution list. If all the members of each specified distribution list can be handled as a single entity, then the check mark “Expand lists”  310  is un-selected so that the distribution lists are collapsed and handled as if they were a single recipient address. The “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  contains a push-button “Delete Section”  316  allowing the user to turn a previously defined section as standard text which is received by all the message recipients. The “Selective Mail Manager” dialog box  301  contains a push-button “Reset List”  308  allowing the user to have the list box  311  reflecting, without exception, the filters defined by the check marks  312 ,  313  and  314  and the entry field  302  and  303 . 
     FIG. 5  is a flow chart illustrating in more detail the method for selecting recipients of an e-mail according to the present invention.
         At step  501 , the method is waiting for an event (such as a command) to invoke the Mail Address Manager.   At step  502 , a Mail Address Manager command is detected, and the parameter of the command is retrieved and written into the local variable SoD.   At step  503 , a test is performed to determine if the current text cursor is positioned within an existing section:
           If so, then control is given to step  504 ;   otherwise, control is given to step  505 .   
           At step  504 , a local variable  LISTID  is set equal to an Id attribute found in the tag associated with the section found at step  503 . Then control is given to step  511 .   At step  505 , a test is performed to determine if some text has been selected:
           If so, then control is given to step  507 ;   Otherwise, control is given to step  506 .   
           At step  506 , a pop-up window is displayed to warn the user that the Mail Address Manager cannot be invoked unless the current cursor position belongs to an existing section of text or some text is otherwise selected. Then control is given to step  501  for handling a future Mail Address Manager command.   At step  507 , a test is performed to determine if a MAMT (see description of  FIG. 4 ) table has already been initialized:
           If so, then control is given to step  509 ;   Otherwise, control is given to step  508 .   
           At step  508 , a default MAMT table is created. As described in  FIG. 4 , a table is used by the SMM to store information of selective mails. The table is filled when the message is entered by the author through the graphical user interface and the mail composer as described in  FIGS. 3A and 3B . As described with the following steps of the flowchart of  FIG. 5 , once the message is composed and the MAMT table is filled, the SMM generates the corresponding selective mails according to the message content and the list of recipients described in the MAMT table. The SMM also deletes the MAMT table rows corresponding to the generated selective mails each time it inserts them in the SMTP stock for further forwarding to the MTA according to the SMTP protocol. The MAMT table  401  comprises a top record  402  and four body records  403 , each of them being associated with a specific “List ID” field  412  and a specific “List Color” field  411 . The top record  402  is initialized by the fields  411  and  412  being set equal to those of the first body record  403 .   At step  509 , the “List ID” field  412  of the top record  402  is retrieved from the MAMT  401  table and memorized in a local variable  LISTID .   At step  510 , tags are introduced around the selected text, with an attribute Id set equal to the local variable  LISTID .   At step  511 , the body record  403  with a “List ID” field  412  equal to the local variable  LISTID , is copied onto the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table.   At step  512 , the Selective Mail Manager dialog box  301  is displayed onto the display device.   At step  513 , the various graphical objects presents on the Selective Mail Manager dialog box  301  are initialized according to the values of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table:
           The “Filter IN” entry field  302  is initialized with the value of the “Filter IN” field  407  of the top record  402 .   The “Filter OUT” entry field  303  is initialized with the value of the “Filter OUT” field  406  of the top record  402 .   Among the four radio buttons  305 , the selected one corresponds to the color pad  304  showing the color specified in the “List Color” field  411  of the top record  402 .   The “Expand lists” check box  310  is selected if the value of the “Expand” field  405  of the top record  402  is found equal to  TRUE .   The “Bcc:” check box  312  is selected if the value of the “Bcc” field  408  of the top record  402  is found equal to  TRUE .   The “Cc:” check box  313  is selected if the value of the “Cc” field  409  of the top record  402  is found equal to TRUE.   The “To:” check box  314  is selected if the value of the “To” field  410  of the top record  402  is found equal to TRUE.   The list of recipients resulting from the values found in the fields  405 ,  406 ,  407 ,  408 ,  409 ,  410  is then evaluated and shown on the recipient list box  311  by deselecting the names which are not present.   Finally each selected (respectively deselected) name in the recipient list box  311  is deselected (respectively selected) if found present in the “List Exceptions” field  404  of the top record  402 .   
           At step  514 , the current text selection receives a flashing background color corresponding to the color pad  304  above the selected radio button  305 .   At step  515 , the method waits for a user action on the Selective Mail Manager dialog box  301 .   At step  516 , a user event has been detected on the Selective Mail Manager dialog box  301 :
           If it is a click on the up-down scrolling bar  309 , then control is given to step  517 .   If it is a click on the push-button  306  “Close” or on the closing-window icon  315 , then control is given to step  518 .   If it is a click on the push-button  316  “Delete Section”, then control is given to step  520 .   If it is an update of the text entry fields  302  “Filter IN” or  303  “Filter OUT”, then control is given to step  521 .   If it is a click on one of the radio buttons  305 , then control is given to step  522 .   If it is a click on the check box  310  “Expand lists”, then control is given to step  523 .   If it is a click on the push-button  308  “Reset list”, then control is given to step  524 .   If it is a click on one of the check boxes  312  “Bcc:”, or  313  “Cc:”, or  314  “To:”, then control is given to step  525 .   If it is a click on the push-button  307  “Save”, then control is given to step  526 .   
           At step  517 , the recipient list box  311  is scrolled up or down according to the selected scrolling direction. Then control is given back to step  515 .   At step  518 , the Selective Mail Manager dialog box  301  is closed.   At step  519 , the recipient list is computed for each record of the MAMT  401  table, according to the values found in the fields  404  to  410 . Then for each defined section within the mail text body, the opening tag attributes are updated to reflect the values found in the fields of the MAMT record with a “List ID” field  412  matching the tag Id attribute. Finally the flashing of the text (as initialized at step  514 ) is stopped. Then control is given back to step  501  for handling a future Mail Address Manager command.   At step  520 , the opening and closing tags around the current selected section are removed, and control is given to step  518 .   At step  521 , the fields “Filter IN”  407  and/or “Filter OUT”  406  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table are updated according to the respective values of the text entry fields “Filter IN”  302  and/or “Filter OUT”  303 . Then control is given to step  513 .   At step  522 , the body record  403  whose “List Color” field  411  corresponds to the color pad  304  above the selected radio button  305 , is copied onto the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table. Then control is given to step  527 .   At step  523 , the “Expand” field  405  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is set equal to TRUE (respectively FALSE) if the check box “Expand list”  310  is selected (respectively deselected). Then control is given to step  513 .   At step  524 , the field “List Exceptions”  404  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is cleared. Then control is given to step  513 .   At step  525 , the “Bcc” field  408  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is set equal to TRUE (respectively FALSE) if the check box “Bcc:”  312  is selected (respectively deselected). The “Cc” field  409  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is set equal to TRUE (respectively FALSE) if the check box “Cc:”  313  is selected (respectively deselected). The “To” field  410  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is set equal to TRUE (respectively FALSE) if the check box “To:”  314  is selected (respectively deselected). Then control is given to step  513 .   At step  526 , the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table is copied onto the body record  403  with the same “List ID” field  412 . Then control is given to step  513 .   At step  527 , the Id attribute of the opening tag of the selected section is updated with the value of the “List ID” field  412  of the top record  402  of the MAMT  401  table. Then control is given to step  513 .       
   When the e-mails are prepared to be given to the SMTP stack according to the input obtained through the graphical interface, they are built up to be sent by the SMTP stack. The build up of the e-mails may be done in three different ways. One way is when the mail author has only entered a recipient list and has not colored sections of the mails. This means that only one mail will be prepared with the entire initial message text and the recipient list is computed according to the mail author inputs. In the MAMT table will be stored only one line with the inputs from the mail author for the recipient list rule and without any color for the text, meaning that the entire text is concerned by the line. The text will be tagged from beginning to the end with tags containing the LIST id of the MAMT table line. 
   In the case where some sections are colored, and a recipient list is computed for each section, the messages will be built by associating each colored section with the corresponding recipient list computed from the inputs provided by the mail author. One line is created in the MAMT table for each section associated with a recipient list rule. The tags encompassing in the message text each section will point with the LIST id to the corresponding record in the MAMT table. 
   In another embodiment, the section tags of the colored sections are compatible with the tag defined in the European application entitled “A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREPARING E-MAILS” serial number 04291949.8 filed Jul. 29, 2004 by F. Bauchot, F-X Drouet and G. Marmigere referenced in the Background section of this patent application. In this case, the SMP (Selective Mail Parser) can be used for preparing the mails to be given to the SMTP stack of the user to be sent to the local mail management server. In this case also, an additional programming block can modify the recipient lists of the mails prepared by the SMP. Also, the SMTP stack sends the modified mails to the recipient list prepared by the SPM instead of the recipient list read inside the modified mails. 
   The programming within workstation  200  can be loaded from a computer storage medium such as a magnetic disk, optical disk, DVD, etc. or downloaded from network media via the Internet. The computer storage media, network media and semiconductor memory are collectively called “computer readable media”.