Method for viewing non-image attachments on a portable electronic device

1. A method for viewing an attachment of an email message on a portable electronic device comprising:

requesting to view said attachment in an attachment viewer of said portable electronic device, said attachment having a renderable format;

building a graph structure within an attachment server representing a map of said attachment, said graph structure including at least one renderable identifier corresponding to a page of said attachment;

requesting rendering of said attachment, said rendering request being sent from said attachment viewer to said attachment server and including said at least one renderable identifier;

initializing a rendering library and storing rendering commands corresponding to command types of said graph structure in said rendering library;

drawing said rendering commands in an off-screen bitmap;

saving said off-screen bitmap as a JPEG file;

sending said JPEG file to said portable electronic device; and

displaying said JPEG file in said attachment viewer.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising encapsulating said JPEG file in Universal Content Stream (UCS) data prior to sending said JPEG file to said portable electronic device.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2 , further comprising saving said UCS data in a content store of said portable electronic device.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said graph structure is a Document Object Model (DOM).

5. A server process comprising:

receiving a request to view an attachment of an email message, said attachment having a renderable format;

building a graph structure within an attachment server representing a map of said attachment, said graph structure including at least one renderable identifier corresponding to a page of said attachment;

receiving a request to render said attachment, said request to render including said at least one renderable identifier;

initializing a rendering library and storing rendering commands corresponding to command types of said graph structure in said rendering library;

drawing said rendering commands in an off-screen bitmap;

saving said off-screen bitmap as a JPEG file; and

transmitting said JPEG file.

6. A server method as claimed in claim 5 , further comprising encapsulating said JPEG file in Universal Content Stream (UCS) data prior to transmitting said JPEG file.

7. A server method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein said graph structure is a Document Object Model (DOM).

8. A mobile device method comprising:

transmitting a request to view an attachment of an email message, said attachment having a renderable format;

receiving a server descriptor including at least one renderable identifier corresponding to a page of said attachment;

transmitting a request to render said attachment, said request to render including said at least one renderable identifier;

receiving a JPEG file corresponding to said attachment rendered to an off-screen bitmap; and

displaying said JPEG file.

9. The mobile device method as claimed in claim 8 , wherein said request to render said attachment is built as an attachment request protocol command string for rendering said at least one renderable identifier.

10. The mobile device method as claimed in claim 9 , wherein said attachment request protocol command string is expressed in Extensible Markup Language (XML).

11. The mobile device method as claimed in claim 8 , wherein said JPEG file is displayed in-line with any textual content of said attachment.

12. The mobile device method as claimed in claim 8 , further comprising saving said JPEG file in a content store.