HRT Journey Tracker — Dev Suite

Source: Dev.to

🌱 A little intro before I explain

I’ve been slowly building a small ecosystem of Windows desktop apps to support my own HRT journey — and hopefully make something useful for other trans folks too. What started as “I just want a simple tracker” has grown into a whole playground of tools: journaling, tracking, bookmarking, and a launcher to tie them together.

None of this is polished yet. It’s messy, experimental, and constantly evolving. But that’s the point. This workspace is where I learn, iterate, and figure out what actually feels good to use. Every app is its own little prototype, and eventually they’ll merge into something cohesive and beautiful.

If you’re curious about the process, want to follow along, or just enjoy seeing queer tech projects grow from the ground up, here’s the full breakdown of what I’m working on.

🛠️ The Suite

This is a modular workspace of small Windows desktop apps I’m building in parallel. Each one explores a different piece of the puzzle: journaling, tracking, bookmarking, and launching. Eventually, they’ll merge into a single, polished tool — but for now it’s all about experimentation, iteration, and learning.

GitHub repository:

💻 What’s in the suite?

• Journey Journal — a journaling‑focused app
• TrackMyHRT — a hormone tracking app
• Resource Manager — a bookmark‑style link saver
• Launcher — a workspace app picker

Each app lives in its own folder, with its own PyInstaller .spec file, assets, and build logic. I’m using PySide6 for the UI and packaging with PyInstaller for clean Windows builds.

🧪 What this workspace is

• ✅ A sandbox for experiments, prototypes, and mini‑features

• ✅ A place to develop each app independently

• ✅ A repeatable build system for PyInstaller packaging

• ❌ Not yet a unified app or release pipeline

• ❌ Not yet optimized or finalized — expect refactors as features converge

📁 Folder structure

HRT Journey Tracker/
├─ Journey Journal/
├─ TrackMyHRT/
├─ Resource manager/
├─ Launcher/
└─ README.md

Each app is self‑contained. Some use a data/ package for UI and storage logic. build/ and dist/ folders are generated during packaging and should not be committed.

🧭 Launcher app

The Launcher auto‑discovers apps in the workspace and lets you launch them with one click. It supports:

• Alt+letter shortcuts
• Dark/light theme toggle
• Recent activity tracking
• Duplicate instance warnings
• Syntax/import diagnostics

It scans folders up to depth 2 and uses smart heuristics to pick entry scripts.

Note: The Launcher launches the .py folder, but you can open the explorer and manually launch an .exe.

🧠 Why multiple apps?

Each app explores a different UX or workflow:

• TrackMyHRT → structured tracking
• Journey Journal → journaling UI
• Resource Manager → quick link access

Once the features stabilize, I’ll consolidate them into a unified tool with shared architecture and packaging.

💜 A personal note

This is a passion project — both as a trans woman building something for my community, and as a developer learning and growing through every line of code.

If this helps even one person feel more supported on their journey, it’s worth it.

Thanks for being here 💜