Dexter – an opinionated day planner for Mac
Hey HN, Dexter is a day planner I built for Mac (and web). This was a grief project. Some people make art when they're soul searching, and making apps has always been a bit of an artistic outlet for me. Earlier this year my mother committed suicide and two weeks later the company I worked for laid off my entire division. After taking some time to grieve and process I started building something just for me, just for fun, just because I wanted to. Dexter has been a slow project that started as paper sketches at my kitchen table and slowly morphed into a codebase. It allowed me to play with…
In plain words
Dexter is a day planner application available for Mac and web. It helps users organize and plan their daily tasks and schedules with an opinionated approach to task management. The app was built using modern web technologies including TypeScript, Postgres, Tailwind, and Tauri, combining a clean interface with functional design for everyday planning needs.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN, Dexter is a day planner I built for Mac (and web). This was a grief project. Some people make art when they're soul searching, and making apps has always been a bit of an artistic outlet for me. Earlier this year my mother committed suicide and two weeks later the company I worked for laid off my entire division. After taking some time to grieve and process I started building something just for me, just for fun, just because I wanted to. Dexter has been a slow project that started as paper sketches at my kitchen table and slowly morphed into a codebase. It allowed me to play with tools I wanted to get better at like Postgres and Typescript while also letting me try (and in some cases fail) experimenting with new-to-me tools like Tailwind, Supabase, Tauri, Electron, and Vite. Small portions of the app and site were "vibe coded", but 99% is hand-crafted code (not necessarily good code), graphics, and data models. This was meant to be a fun project where I learned things just because I wanted to learn something, not a race to see how fast I could grind out a product. For an example of "unnecessary but fun", I made each SVG on the marketing site twice with Figma - once in a light theme and again in a dark theme - so if you toggle your OS's dark mode, everything should change, even the images. A few things about the app: - Yeah, I know, it's an Electron app. I tried using Tauri and other tools but hit a few snags. The Electron ecosystem was incredibly mature and easy to use in comparison - The app is open source [0] and so is the marketing site [1] - Some friends and I have been using it daily for a few months and really enjoy it compared to our old multi-tool workflows - Dexter is the name of my 12(?) year old husky, hence the dog branding - There is a pricing widget on the marketing site but the app is currently totally free. I might integrate Stripe soon if (and only if) that feels like a fun project, but the goal isn't to get rich or even turn a profit, it's to have fun and build something genuinely useful that I use every day There are a bunch of features I would love to add and enhancements I would like to make, and eventually I will. Currently, I pick up a feature just because it sounds fun that day and I put it down when it is no longer fun. It might not be a good business model, but it has been a wonderful antidote to an industry rife with burnout and a personal life that's been a little out of control. I hope you enjoy it and maybe build something for yourself, just because it sounds fun. If anyone gives it a try I will be in the comments today and happy to answer any questions! [0] https://github.com/cvburgess/dexter-app [1] https://github.com/cvburgess/dexter-www
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