Can HealthVault applications be be written as thick Windows forms applications or must they be written as web applications?

Question

Well thats my question:

Can HealthVault applications be be written as thick Windows forms applications or must they be written as web applications?

It seems to me that the barrier to implementing a windows forms app would be implementing the OpenID / LiveID login in a windows forms app, which the HealthVaultPage super class does for you. In other words, I think you'd have to implement a HealthVaultForm super class and go from there. The rest of the framework seems to be platform independent.

The reason I ask is that a reasonable scenario might be to implement a user web with an administrative thick app on the other end.

Am I missing the point or is that a reasonable thing to try to do? And is there even any way of doing it?

Brian

Answer 1

There are two types of ways you can access HealthVault (the terms are kind of confusing).

1. Online - The most common is "online" mode, which requires that the user login with their LiveID/OpenID every time they want to use your application. This is what you'd use if you were writing a web application.
2. Offline - The second way is "offline" mode, which is what you'll want to look into. This will let you access someone's HealthVault data without them having to login. However, it requires that the user login once so that she can approve your application and so that your application can get her Person ID (aka User ID) and Record ID, which you need to perform any offline action.

Also note that HealthVault applications have different access rights for each mode. For example, an application may allow online access to weight, height, and allergy data, but may only allow offline access to allergy data.

And note that the sample applications that come with the SDK do not support offline access, so if you want to play around with this mode, you'll have to create your own application.