Patent ID: 8826148

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating the simultaneous viewing of email messages and associated attachments within an email reader application, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a graphical user interface (GUI) to a user within the email reader application; (b) receiving, via said GUI, a first input from said user, wherein said first input is indicative of an email message said user desires to open; (c) displaying to said user, via said GUI and in response to said first input, the contents of said email message, wherein said email message contains at least one attachment, and further displaying to the user a preview of at least a portion of the at least one attachment prior to receiving a second input from the user, the preview displayed at a location corresponding to the location where the at least one attachment would be viewed upon receipt of the second input from said user; (d) receiving, via said GUI, the second input from said user, wherein said second input is indicative of said user desiring to view the content of said attachment; and (e) displaying to said user, via said GUI and simultaneously with the contents of said email message, the contents of said at least one attachment; wherein the native application in which said at least one attachment was originally created need not be launched by said user and wherein the content of said at least one attachment is editable by said user within the email reader application; and (f) wherein the contents of said email message comprises a conversation thread between said user and a plurality of collaborators working on a word processing document attached to said email and displaying to the user, via said GUI, a menu for selecting at least one version of the word processing document previously saved by one of the plurality of collaborators to display the contents of the selected version of the word processing document simultaneously with the contents of said email message wherein the selected version is displayed in a redline format indicating which of the plurality of collaborators made a corresponding change in the word processing document from a previous version of the word processing document.