Mac: App(visible=False) is broken

[misakichan]

Hi, when I use xlwings XLSX file operation, set up the app = xlwings.App (visible = False) but in MAC will automatically open the Excel.app, and would not automatically open the Excel in win10.
mac os 10.12.4
windows10
Pycharm
python3.6
xlwings(last version from pypi)

[fzumstein]

Are you seeing this with Excel 2016 on Mac?

[misakichan]

Yes,Excel 2016 on mac(build15.32 170309)~

[fzumstein]

Yeah Mac Excel 2016 plays difficult. It did work for Mac Excel 2011 but I am not sure if it can be properly handled with Mac2016... so for now consider it a known bug...

[misakichan]

Ok, thank you very much for your answer ~

[fzumstein]

Ok so currently it opens Excel as non-frontmost application. Maybe it would be better to minimize it instead of hide it the same way as when you click the orange button (between the quit and maximize buttons).

[samsfisher]

Hello, the app is visible even with Excel 2011 Mac. Any ideas whats going wrong?

import xlwings as xw
# app = xw.App(visible=False,spec='/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Excel')
app = xw.App(visible=False)

# PATH NAME
input_file_path = 'fname'
wb = app.books.open(input_file_path)
sht = wb.sheets['Log']
sht.range('D2').value = 'TT'
sht.range('D2').value 

[fzumstein]

Hiding windows on Mac works differently from Windows. It only moves them away as frontmost window. I was testing app.api.windows[1].window_state.set(kw.window_state_minimized) to see if the behaviour is more of what is expected by minimizing it instead of hiding the window, but that wasn't much more promising.

I think for now the best way to do it is to call app.visible after opening the book:

import xlwings as xw
app = xw.App()

# PATH NAME
input_file_path = 'fname'
wb = app.books.open(input_file_path)
app.visible = False
sht = wb.sheets['Log']
sht.range('D2').value = 'TT'
sht.range('D2').value 

[kevinjordan]

While you figure out if/how to suppress visible state of excel workbook.
Is it also possible to suppress the prompt to handle automatic links for an excel document that has links to another document?
e.g. equivalent of 'ignore'

[fzumstein]

@kevinjordan see this issue: https://github.com/ZoomerAnalytics/xlwings/issues/562
you'd need to adopt it to mac though

[fzumstein]

Looks like it's possible after all as it works properly when opening like this from the command line, see man open:

open -gjn -a /Applications/Microsoft\ Excel.app