Using the EPiServer Communities API from a console app?

Question

I'd like to write a console or winforms application that will interact with the EPiServer database. Since I don't want to muck about in the deep inards of the database I'd like to use the EPiServer API.

However, all the examples are using the "CommunitySystem.CurrentContext" which is null when running outside the website.

Now, I'm going to transfer a large amount of data from a legacy system to EpiServer Community and I really don't want to do that from a web page but from an application I have a little more control of.

Is there any way I can use the API from outside the web context?

Answer 1

I'm not that familiar with the community model. But... I've had no problems at all running huge imports through a web form (or control). The key (besides having disabled execution and database timeouts) has been to run it through Internet Explorer on the site's server and have the site's domain name mapped to 127.0.0.1 in the HOSTS-file. It can run for hours and hours while logging progress to a table or text-file before sending the response.

Answer 2

My colleague Jarle figured out the last bits and blogged the whole process here So if you want to run the EPiServer API outside of IIS, that's the place to start. Works like a charm!