Why don't translated items disappear ?

appTranslator's Items to be translated mode acts as a filter to display only those texts that were not translated yet (or the ones whose original text was modified, requiring an update of their translations).
I believe this is one of the most import features in a localization tool: You should never have to look for the remaining work items. Neither should you ever be afraid that you forgot to translate a text somewhere in your app. Manually checking is like finding a needle in a hay stack. And computers are very good at that game, hence let your tool do that job for you.

But there's a little behaviour of this Items to be translated mode that may sound like it doesn't follow the logic. Keep with me :

When you translate an item (such as a menu item), this item switches to the Translated status (see picture).



Question:
In Items to be translated mode, why doesn't this item simply disappear ? Since it's translated, it doesn't meet the view mode criteria anymore, hence it should no longer show up. Why do you have to hit the F5 key (Refresh) to make it disappear ?

The short answer:
It's all about improving the user experience.

The long answer:
Because it would be confusing: As soon as you click OK, what you just typed disappears from the screen. Most of us more or less incousciously look back in the list at the item they just translated to kind of double-check. Not finding it is very confusing.
There's another reason to show the green-checked items : It makes people happier when they can see all the work they already performed. If the items disappear at once, the translator has the feeling he's walking on an endless road. Which makes him/her frustrated. Which makes him/her hate appTranslator. Which I don't want :-)

I'm not the first one to use this technique : In Outlook's Tasks List, when you check a task to mark it as done, it doesn't disappear but instead a line is drawn through it, exactly as you would do if your tasks list were written down on a piece of paper. I remember I once read a paper about usability tests by MS showing that people are happier if they see the tasks they alreadycompleted. (Can't find the link anymore unfortunately).