it's relatively easy to force the focus from a given view to a specific view. i've tested with 4 edittext views. when i finish entering some text in edittext1 and press the enter/return key, i can shift the focus to, eg, edittext4 instead of edittext2, which might be the logical "next" view. this sounds like what you are trying to do. i haven't tested with my barcode scanner, but i'm optimistic. in the meantime, post a screen capture of your layout to give me an idea of what i'm looking at.