I can confirm it compiles with the latest Visual Studio and runs fine on Windows 10 in both 32-bit and 64-bit. (Well it did last time I checked, haven't tried the very latest release.) You're right the screenshots are ancient, but the code itself is still being updated by the project's maintainer Jeroen.
The FOX codebase isn't terribly modern, as it's older than the standard C++ concurrency machinery, but it works.
It does look dated, but I use it daily (I use the xfe file manager) and it is bloody quick - every action is almost instantaneous compare to the KDE, gnome, mate or cinnamon file managers.
It depends on the target market for your application I suppose - if your target won't be happy unless they have html/CSS or similar animations, then using something with low latency isn't going to make them happy.
Personally I don't mind the Windows 98 look, it strikes me as clean and no-nonsense. Everything is clear and high-contrast. Unlike with many 'flat' themes, it's generally clear what's clickable. I realise not everyone likes the Windows 98 look though.
If someone is serious about developing fast GUI apps, trading off on themeability is the kind of thing they should consider. As you say, FOX really is fast. I presume this is because of its uncompromising hard-coded native-code-only approach - it's just a C++ codebase. All the drawing operations are implemented directly in C++. Unlike Qt, there's no JavaScript. Unlike JavaFX, there's no CSS. It's all just C++.
Perhaps a GUI toolkit could add themeability without any performance impact by implementing it as a compile-time abstraction.
> depends on the target market for your application I suppose - if your target won't be happy unless they have html/CSS or similar animations, then using something with low latency isn't going to make them happy
Right, but mattgreenrocks said fast, focused, and respect the user's time and computing resources, presumably in contrast to current norms.
