Comment 2 for bug 333054

I don't have a machine running Ubuntu or compiz, so I can't test this directly but I think it has to do with your window manager. In order to avoid getting focus, CellWriter calls:

gtk_window_set_accept_focus(GTK_WINDOW(window), FALSE);

I've noticed that some window managers (or with certain settings in any case), will ignore this and prevent CellWriter from functioning properly. Check your window manager's settings for focus stealing prevention and respecting focus hints. If that does not help, try a different window manager to see if that helps.

There is no way to actually force the window manager to change focus. The best CellWriter can do is set this hint and hope it is respected. I believe onboard and matchbox will accept focus but do not send their key stroke output through the same mechanism that CellWriter uses. They have some method of finding out what window was focused last, I am not exactly sure how. I will have to look at these programs to see how they deliver their keystrokes and see if this method supports Unicode etc. If so, it would be a good idea to implement the same functionality in CellWriter.