Composer icon in dock

This happens with most gui apps that run as root. The 'app' in your dock is just a script that launches another app as another user. They both happen to have the same icon, so you see two while it is running.

No, if I'm understanding what you're describing, I think that's just how it works. Eventually you only end up with one icon of the running application, correct? What I mean is, only the one that appeared to the right shows the glowing "running" dot underneath it.
If so, I'm not 100% sure why it works this way (a dev @ JAMF could probably answer that pretty quickly) but my guess is, since Composer requires running the entire application in a root context so it can capture everything going on on the Mac, it may be "re-launching" its own executable under a root environment after you authenticate, which ends up placing a new icon in the Dock. So, click the permanent Dock icon to launch, authenticate with admin creds, it then reopens itself as a root application, which creates the new icon, but the original executable in the Dock shuts down afterwards since its done its job.

No, it's always happened here across 10.7-10.10.
Composer always does it no matter if I'm on a local account or AD account. Odd, but I just learned to live with it.
Once it loads completely, the "active dot" goes away under the original item in the Dock and the new one is active.
I guess it makes sense as it needs root access to the entire HDD contents as @mm2270 states, but it's still odd which is why I just moved the Casper folder to the right side of the Dock and launch that way.

Like @boettchs I just keep the entire "Casper Suite" folder in my Dock, set it to grid view and click, click to launch Composer or any of the other apps so I only ever see the launched version in the Dock. In other words, I've learned to live with it :)

@endor-moon

Oddly, I was able to re-create this--or if not this exactly, something very close to it--and I did open up a defect for the behavior.

What I did was pretty simple:

- Put Composer in the Dock.
- Open & Authenticate. The second Composer icon pops up in the Dock, which is normal behavior.
- Move that second Composer icon to another position in the Dock.
- Use/Quit Composer.

Both icons stayed.
Both icons would open Composer.
Repeating the above steps left yet another Composer icon in the Dock, and any of them would open Composer, however, it was the left-most positioned Composer icon that would bounce.

If you don't move that second Composer icon that pops up after authenticating, it will disappear as normal once you quit Composer. The second icon appearing when Composer is launched is normal, however, it's supposed to disappear once you quit Composer, regardless of whether you move its position around in the Dock or not.

I stopped at about 10 Composer icons all hanging out on my Dock, then filed the behavior as D-007973.

Amanda Wulff
JAMF Software Support

Oof! I haven't run into that particular defect. I was under the impression this was just the usual, second icon appears, first one closes down behavior that I've seen now for years with Composer. I wasn't aware that moving it around in the Dock could produce some phantom icons like that.

Just to note though, moving an icon in the Dock for an icon that appears from launching an application will make it a permanent icon in your Dock. This is, as I've seen, default OS X behavior. In other words, launch something from your Applications folder that does not normally appear in your Dock, then quit it, it disappears as expected. Repeat the process, but simply drag the icon into a new spot in the Dock while the app is running. The OS sees this as "I want to make this a permanent icon in my Dock" and when quitting the app, the icon remains in that spot. So seems like that's what's going on, but.... it should not be making extras! Dragging the icon should simply move the existing one into the new spot and not dupe them like that, so, yeah, something odd there going on.
Weird! Thanks for the detail as always Amanda!

Thanks for the many replies. The root context as mentioned by mm2270 is probably the reason this happens, and I like the work-around of just putting the Casper folder into the dock. Thanks to Amanda for considering this a defect. ;)

@endor-moon - careful when @amanda.wulff says that. I was happy once when I thought I found a bug - turned out she was talking about me as being the defect... :)

Thanks boettchs, that gave me a chuckle. It's the user's expectations that are defective. ;)

@boettchs @endor-moon

It was a weird one! I did know that moving an icon around in the dock would cause OS X to assume you meant to keep it there, though I wasn't sure if that behavior was intended to happen with the second Composer icon that opens up or not.
I discussed it a bit with one of our QA engineers, and we did check to see if there was a way we could get around the possibility of unlimited icons being potentially created if the second Composer icon that pops up after authentication is moved but, in the end, it turned out to be a, "That's just how the OS works. Don't move the icon and it'll disappear as expected." situation.

Kind of funny when expected behavior lets you do odd things like that though, and my dock looked very peppermint candy-like with over a dozen Composer icons on it.

Haha! It probably looked like a candy cane. Just in time for the Christmas holiday. (y'know, everything starts at least two months early with that stuff)

While its expected behavior to have the OS assume you want a permanent placement for the icon when its moved, its certainly not supposed to create duplicates. At least it doesn't when moving normal apps around.
This is probably one of those strange confluence of conditions. An app running as root, being moved around in the Dock. The OS doesn't really know how to handle it and just does weird stuff. : P