showApp

Command

Starts the application in the foreground

Send this JSON-RPC message in the BND_MESSAGE extra of an Intent with the action ACTION_RNC_BROADCAST, to BeNav's activity or receiver: see Sending commands.

Brings BeNav to the front. A client application that has sent BeNav a route, a message or a set of POIs uses this when the driver needs to actually look at the map, so the hand-off from one application to the other happens without asking the driver to find and tap an icon.

BeNav is a separate application on the device, so this is the seam between the two. The client application decides when the driver should be looking at navigation; showApp makes it so.

Worth knowing

It cannot start a stopped application. Android forbids a background broadcast from launching an activity, so a command sent while BeNav is down is refused with -7 application.not.started. BeNav has to be launched first, from its own icon, or by sending the command as an Activity intent.
Bringing BeNav forward from the background requires the "Display over other apps" permission on Android 10 and later. Without it the command returns 21 start.activity.exception.

Example: a two-application workflow

A field-service application manages the day's jobs. When the technician accepts one, the application sends startGuidance followed by showApp: BeNav comes to the front already routed to the site, and the technician simply drives. On arrival, onDestinationReached tells the field-service application to take the screen back for the job sheet.

Command#

text

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "showApp",
  "id": "1"
}

Response#

Success#

text

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": {},
  "id": "1"
}

Error#

Generic errors, plus:

-7 application.not.started - the application was not running.
21 start.activity.exception - the application is running in the background but could not be brought to the front. On Android 10+ this needs "Display over other apps" (SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW) to be granted to BeNav.