TL;DR: Apply the gradle-buildconfig-plugin or the BuildKonfig plugin to buildSrc/build.gradle.kts.

1. Introduction

There is a long-lasted Gradle issue gradle/gradle#15383 that has almost been impossible to resolve, and it has been very frustrating for the Gradle community. It is about accessing the version catalogs from precompiled script plugins. While many workarounds exist, today I want to show you the workaround I found recently.

Let’s begin.

2. Understanding the issue

The issue gradle/gradle#15383, created by   Cédric Champeau (melix), states:

In a similar way to gradle/gradle#15382, we want to make the version catalogs accessible to precompiled script plugins. Naively, one might think that it’s easier to do because precompiled script plugins are applied to the “main” build scripts, but this isn’t necessarily the case:

• First, precompiled script plugins can be published too, meaning that they are no different from regular plugins in practice
• Second, precompiled script plugins can be declared in included builds, not just buildSrc

Therefore, the “version catalog” that a precompiled script plugin should see cannot be the catalog declared in the “main build”. It cannot be, either, the catalog declared in the project which itself declares the precompiled script plugin (typically the settings file of the buildSrc project): in particular, the catalogs declared in buildSrc/settings.gradle are for the build logic of buildSrc itself, not for the “main” build.

In short, precompiled script plugins are not able to access version catalogs, and it is quite hard to fix this issue. But why? To better understand this issue, let’s review some concepts in Gradle.

2.1. What is the composite build?

Gradle official documentation says:

A composite build is a build that includes other builds.

Basically, this is the includeBuild("relative/path/to/another/gradle/project") statement in your settings.gradle.kts file. The included build itself is a valid, isolated, and self-contained Gradle project that has its own settings.gradle.kts and/or build.gradle.kts file.

You can try adding the Gradle wrapper to relative/path/to/another/gradle/project and opening the folder in your IDEA. Watch your IDEA treat it as a normal Gradle project, just like your typical Java Gradle projects 😂.

2.2. The precompiled script plugin as a composite build

Gradle official documentation recommends two ways to structure your multi-module project. Either use buildSrc or a composite build to extract common build logic into a build project, used by subprojects in your multi-module project.

Here is the folder structure:

.
├── gradle/
├── gradlew
├── settings.gradle.kts
├── build-logic/ or buildSrc/
│   ├── settings.gradle.kts
│   └── conventions
│       ├── build.gradle.kts
│       └── src/main/kotlin/shared-build-conventions.gradle.kts
├── sub-project1/
│   └── build.gradle.kts
├── sub-project2/
│   └── build.gradle.kts
└── lib/
    └── build.gradle.kts

Since Gradle 8.0, buildSrc has started to behave more like a composite build. Both ways are now more or less the same.

Cool! 😲 So now your common build logic is a self-contained Gradle project by itself.

In fact, if you look closely at the folder structure of the build project.

.
├── settings.gradle.kts
└── conventions
    ├── build.gradle.kts
    └── src/main/kotlin/shared-build-conventions.gradle.kts

It looks like a normal Gradle project, right?

So, here comes the truth about the precompiled script plugin.

2.3. The truth of the precompiled script plugin

Have you ever wondered why the precompiled script plugin is placed in the src/main/kotlin folder? 🤔 Like the shared-build-conventions.gradle.kts example from above. Can it just stay in the first level in the build project like build-logic/shared-build-conventions.gradle.kts?

Well, here I would like to invite you to watch a video from   Jendrik Johannes (jjohannes) titled Understanding Gradle #25 – Using Java to configure builds. Basically, each Gradle script is just an implementation of the Plugin interface. The build script build.gradle.kts corresponds to Plugin<Project>, and the settings script settings.gradle.kts corresponds to Plugin<Settings>.

Therefore, the precompiled script plugin, placed inside the src/main/<jvm language> folder, is also business logic code, but the business logic here is the build logic of your main project. Such code typically starts from the apply(Project project) method in your class MyPlugin implements Plugin<Project> implementation.

2.4. The version catalog, using it from src/main/kotlin? 🤔

Now, let’s look back to the statement from the issue gradle/gradle#15383:

We want to make the version catalogs accessible to precompiled script plugins

Let’s translate this using the knowledge we reviewed above; it becomes:

“A file called libs.versions.toml is meant to be used in the build.gradle.kts file. Now we want to use it in the business code in the src/main/kotlin folder.”

Now it sounds weird, right? 🤔

That’s why the issue is rarely possible to be solved, because it is a design issue that breaks the separation of concerns principle.

3. Existing workaround

Several intelligent people have proposed great workarounds to this issue. The most famous one is from   Björn Kautler (Vampire)’s comment, where you add a sneaky Gradle internal file to the dependencies {} block. It works, but it is very hacky, not guaranteed to work in any Gradle project (at least it doesn’t work for me 😕), not working in the plugins {} block, and the workaround relies on a Gradle internal API that is subject to change anytime in the future.

Are there other workarounds, preferably without hacks?

Fortunately, there is one for the plugins {} block mentioned by this comment. Since applying external plugins to the precompiled script plugin requires adding the corresponding dependency of the external plugin to the build.gradle.kts file, you can add that dependency to the version catalog. This method assumes that the settings.gradle.kts file in the build project imports the same version catalog used in the main project. I also discovered that the method works for setting plugins, as I described in this forum post.

I also found a hack-free workaround for the dependencies {} block and I described it in this comment. This method plays around the Gradle platform and build phases of Gradle in order to do the trick. However, that method is very annoying because adding/removing a dependency requires 3 modifications around your project.

Together, non-hacky workarounds can cover the plugins {} block and the dependencies {} block. In most cases, this is enough. But what about extensions? For example, if a precompiled script plugin applies the Micronaut Gradle Plugin, how to set the version of the Micronaut framework in the micronaut {} extension using the version catalog? 🤷‍♂️

4. Introducing the new beautiful workaround 🤩

All workarounds mentioned above are more or less doing one thing: “sending” the variables that are meant to be used in Gradle build scripts into the business code in the src/main/kotlin folder.

One day, I unintentionally found two Gradle plugins: the gradle-buildconfig-plugin and the BuildKonfig plugin.

Both plugins are typically used in Kotlin Multiplatform projects (typically Compose Multiplatform apps) to generate a Kotlin file that contains configuration variables you defined inside the build.gradle.kts script.

For example, if you have:

plugins {
  // ...
  id("com.github.gmazzo.buildconfig") version <current version>
}

buildConfig {
  className("MyConfig")   // forces the class name. Defaults to 'BuildConfig'
  packageName("com.foo")  // forces the package. Defaults to '${project.group}'

  buildConfigField(String::class.java, 'APP_NAME', "my-project")
}
//...

You will get:

package com.foo

object MyConfig {
  const val APP_NAME: String = "my-project"
}

Suddenly, I realized that what if I apply this plugin to the build.gradle.kts inside the build project? 😲

[versions]
java = "21"
slf4j = "2.0.13"

[libraries]
slf4j-api = {module = "org.slf4j:slf4j-api", version.ref = "slf4j"}

plugins {
  // ...
  id("com.github.gmazzo.buildconfig") version <current version>
}

buildConfig {
  className("VersionCatalog")   // forces the class name. Defaults to 'BuildConfig'
  packageName("my.util")  // forces the package. Defaults to '${project.group}'

  buildConfigField(Int::class.java, "JAVA_VERSION", libs.versions.java.get().toInt())
  buildConfigField(String::class.java, "SLF4J_API", libs.dep.slf4j.get().toString())
}

Can my precompiled script plugin access JAVA_VERSION and SLF4J_API variables?

Guess what? It actually works! 😱

import my.util.VersionCatalog

// other configs

java {
  toolchain {
    languageVersion.set(JavaLanguageVersion.of(VersionCatalog.JAVA_VERSION))
  }
}

dependencies {
  implementation(VersionCatalog.SLF4J_API)
}

// other configs

5. Conclusion

The method, that utilizes the gradle-buildconfig-plugin or the BuildKonfig plugin for accessing Gradle Version Catalogs from precompiled script plugins, is a beautiful workaround. It is not too hacky, guaranteed to work in any Gradle project, and doesn’t have the limitation where it is only accessible from the plugins {} block or the dependencies {} block. It is a great solution for centralizing version management in your Gradle project.

I hope this workaround can help you in your Gradle project. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below. 😊

It’s almost the 11th anniversary of the day I got into anime.

Ah, I actually don’t know the exact day, but I still remember that day, the beautiful scene of sakura fluttering outside the window, just like the sakura tree in D.C. (Da Capo) that I had just finished watching.

1. Unintentionally, The Branch Derived from Hatsune Miku

As someone who was completely segregated from girls, I had never been able to enjoy the joy of getting along with girls.

it was the end of January 2013, Hatsune Miku had saved me from the abyss for a month already. An anime named AKB0048 mentioned in a Miku douji fiction attracted my attention.

In April, the second season finished airing. The moe style girls unique in Japanese anime born the idea of looking for the next anime.

Let’s search for some good animes. “Da Capo”? What’s this anime? In Chinese, it is translated to 初音岛 which literally means HatsuneJima, which is true because the place in Da Capo is called HatsuneJima. I was aware that the “Hatsune” part is unrelated to Hatsune Miku (初音ミク). But who cares? It has “Hatsune”! Just yolo and watch it. 😄

2. As Sakura Flutters, Where Do My Thoughts Fall with the Wind

Under the forever-blooming sakura tree, a moe and cheerful campus story began.

There’s the lively and adorable younger sister, Asakura Nemu; the petite and cute Yoshino Sakura; the gentle and talented school idol, Shirakawa Kotori; and also Amakase Miharu, Sagisawa Yoriko, Mizukoshi Mako, and Mizukoshi Moe.

Watching their interactions with the protagonist, Asakura Junichi, sparking all kinds of engaging stories—this represents a joyful life, a level of happiness I feel I could never possibly match in my own entire lifetime.

However, as much joy as the various jokes and memes brought in the first half of the story, the “bloodbath” love story in the later half was equally tragic.

Even though the ending was good, the sweet-then-tear-jerking plot was hard to shake off in my mind.

Ah, what a joyful, heart-wrenching yet beautiful story.

However, every story has an end, and endlessly repeating an anime was not ideal.

“Go find the next anime, go find the next happiness, just like how we found Da Capo from AKB0048 initially.”

I smiled with relief.

“However, choosing this path means you will join the Otaku crew and become one of them, being completely socially awkward and being more despised by others, including all the girls in your class. Are you willing?”

The sakura of Da Capo, fluttering in the gentle breeze, fell like a riot of colors. The anime world is so beautiful, why would I hesitate?

This is my first time writing a tech blog post, sharing my own knowledge and experience. Today, I’d like to share my personal setup of Oh My Zsh + Powerlevel10k + some commonly used plugins. This setup has made my terminal experience more enjoyable, and I hope you can have the same delightful experience as I have. 😊

1. Reference

This blog post is written based on the following resources:

1. Oh My Zsh
2. Powerlevel10k

Feel free to check them out for more detailed information.

2. Prerequisites

This guide works well for Linux (including WSL2), MacOS, and Windows Git Bash.

3. Step 1: Install Necessary Fonts

Powerlevel10k works best with its own font called Meslo Nerd Font. Therefore, you need to install it on your OS first. Then, for each shell/terminal program you use (VSCode, Intellij, Windows Terminal, iTerm2, to name a few…), you need to configure it to use these custom fonts.

I know this is a pretty tedious work. Fortunately, Here is the guidance from the Powerlevel10k official GitHub repository. The guide provides instructions on configuring the terminal to utilize the Meslo Nerd Font across many of the well-known terminals.

4. Step 2: Install Necessary Dependencies

Oh My Zsh is an open-source, community-driven framework built on top of Zsh. The installation process also requires other dependencies on your OS. So, make sure you have the following installed:

• zsh (Z shell)
• git (version control system)
• curl or wget (to download the installation script)

For example, on a Debian-based system, you can install them with the following command:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install curl git zsh -y

For Windows Git Bash, installing Zsh can be challenging. You can check out this post by Dominik Rys for how to install Zsh in Windows Git Bash.

5. Step 3: Install Oh My Zsh, Powerlevel10k, and Plugins

At this point, you should have all the necessary dependencies installed. Now, run the following to install Oh My Zsh, Powerlevel10k, and some common plugins.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)" "" --unattended

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
git clone https://github.com/Pilaton/OhMyZsh-full-autoupdate ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/ohmyzsh-full-autoupdate

The above script does the following:

1. Install Oh My Zsh without triggering the interactive shell that asks the user to transfer the default shell to Zsh or not. We will transfer the default shell to Zsh manually later.
2. Install the Powerlevel10k theme.
3. Install the zsh-syntax-highlighting plugin.
   • This plugin provides syntax highlighting for the shell, so you will know if you have typed a command incorrectly before pressing enter.
4. Install the zsh-autosuggestions plugin.
   • This plugin suggests commands as you type based on history and completions, which can dramatically save your time on repetitive tasks and commands.
5. Install the OhMyZsh-full-autoupdate plugin.
   • Since everything is installed using git, it is crucial to keep them up-to-date. This plugin will automatically update Powerlevel10k and Oh My Zsh plugins by running git pull in the background. The update frequency depends on the Oh My Zsh settings. By default, it should be every 13 days.

6. Step 4: Configuring .zshrc to use Powerlevel10k and Plugins

Like Bash uses .bashrc, Zsh uses .zshrc as the configuration file.

By default, Oh My Zsh will create a .zshrc file with a default theme and a single plugin git. To enable Powerlevel10k and the plugins we just installed, we need to modify the .zshrc file.

Open it with your favorite text editor like nano and change the following lines:

1. Change the theme from ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell" to ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k".
2. Add more plugins to the plugins array, from plugins=(git) to:
   bash

   plugins=(git aliases common-aliases zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions ohmyzsh-full-autoupdate)

The above can be achieved by running two sed commands:

sed -i 's/ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"/ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k\/powerlevel10k"/' ~/.zshrc
sed -i 's/plugins=(git)/plugins=(git aliases common-aliases zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autosuggestions ohmyzsh-full-autoupdate)/' ~/.zshrc

7. Step 5: Migrate .bashrc to .zshrc, and .profile to .zprofile

Skip this step if you are setting up a new system.

If you are migrating from Bash to Zsh on your existing system, you might need to take some time to migrate your .bashrc and .profile to .zshrc and .zprofile, respectively.

Unfortunately, there is no way to automate the migration. I also strongly discourage you from executing Zsh at the end of your .bashrc or .profile file, as it can cause problems for other scripts, applications, or IDEs.

However, here are some general things that worth to be considered during the migration:

• Scripts that third-party package managers like Homebrew, SDKMan, etc. have added to your .bashrc or .profile.
• Custom environment variables.
• Custom PATH.
• Custom aliases.
  • Consider migrating to existing plugins in Oh My Zsh. Check out the common-aliases plugin and more in the official documentation.
  • For example, if you use Docker, consider adding the docker and docker-compose aliases to the plugins array in .zshrc.

8. Step 6: Set Zsh as the Default Shell

Finally, set Zsh as the default shell by running the following command:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

For Windows Git Bash, as far as I know, there is no official way to set another shell as the default shell. However, you can run zsh manually every time you open the terminal. Or append this script to the end of your .bashrc file to automatically run Zsh when you open the terminal (Yeah, it goes against what I said in Step 5, but it’s the best we can do for now 😕):

# At the end, switch to zsh
if [[ -t 1 && -x /usr/bin/zsh ]]; then
    export SHELL=$(which zsh)
    if [[ -o login ]]
    then
        exec zsh -l
    else
        exec zsh
    fi
fi

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have a better solution for setting Zsh as the default shell in Windows Git Bash.

9. Step 7: Running Powerlevel10k Configuration Wizard

After you have set Zsh as the default shell, starting a new terminal session will immediately bring you to the Powerlevel10k configuration wizard. You can also run p10k configure at any time to run the wizard again. The wizard will guide you through the process of configuring Powerlevel10k to your liking.

Going through the wizard can be time-consuming. So here, I have prepared a snippet of answers that you can use to quickly configure Powerlevel10k to be like the style shown in the GIF above. Just copy and paste it after you have just started the p10k configure wizard:

y
y
y
y
3
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
3 # change this to 1 if you want to use the style shown in the featured image of this post
2
2
2
1
y
1
y

10. Conclusion

That’s it! You have successfully set up Oh My Zsh with Powerlevel10k and some common plugins. Now you can enjoy a more productive and enjoyable terminal experience. 😁

Any questions or suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below.

This article was originally written last year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of meeting Hatsune Miku, but it was abandoned due to the large scope.

Today, to commemorate the day I met Hatsune Miku 11 years ago on December 20, 2012, I made some modifications and wrote this slightly magical article.

1. The Diva Who Illuminates the Darkness

At that time, I, who was always second to last, was trapped in the abyss called ninth grade, with no expectations for life, and the sky was dark.

On December 20, 2012, the weekly school TV show started, with the theme being anime. The show ended with H.K.君 feai. 洛天依 - 千年食谱颂 (The school was quite open-minded back then, playing what was popular in the world of anime at that time. It’s impossible to imagine that happening in 2023).

Oh~, her name is Luo Tianyi. This anime character on the right caught my attention, and curiosity drove me to continue searching. I found Luo Tianyi’s MMD animation of Senbonzakura (千本桜). Following this clue, I discovered VOCALOID and, of course, Hatsune Miku.

Later on, I found the Project Diva series of games and played Project Diva Extend using JPCSP (at that time, PPSSPP was only at version 0.6.0 and couldn’t run any of the Project Diva PSP games). Although the emulator was laggy and I couldn’t even pass the easy difficulty, it didn’t stop me from meeting Hatsune Miku.

Through the Project Diva Extend, I got to know the 6 members of Crypton Future Media - Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, KAITO, and MEIKO.

Nekomimi Switch, Utani Katachi wa Nai Keredo, Sennen no Dokusouka, Just Be Friends, and many more. Beautiful songs are stored in my phone, played on my way home from school, played during the toughest time preparing for finals, or when doing homework. They shine in the abyss.

When I came to my senses, I realized that I was already sitting in Hatsune Miku’s room, admiring her adorable appearance. It was as if a first love had begun, as if a light was illuminating the darkness in the abyss. I gradually fell in love with Hatsune Miku, the diva who was two years older than me at the time.

The pressure was overwhelming, and I couldn’t help but grab a corner of Hatsune Miku’s clothes and almost cry out, “Can you stay by my side?”

“I am the manifestation of the wishes of all fans and creators, the embodiment of Hatsune Miku from everyone’s hearts, so of course I am willing.”

At this moment, I no longer feared the darkness, because I had someone to protect in my heart, and the story of turning the tide in the abyss begun.

You are new to Vocaloid/Miku? You’re wondering which songs should you listen first?

Then come read this post and I will introduce you 2 quick ways to get familiar with Vocaloid/Miku 🙂.

1. Prerequisites

Before we get started, let’s make sure you have access to the following sites:

• Niconico
• Youtube

It’s better if you can understand some basic Japanese, or use a translator to understand Japanese.

2. The Main Idea

Vocaloid has been around for 10+ years. Numerous Vocaloid songs were created by various Vocaloid Producers. Some of these songs are famous and become the symbol of Vocaloid throughout the years.

Therefore, listening famous Vocaloid songs in the history is the best way to get familiar with Vocaloid.

Of course, it can’t be that easy to get known to Vocaloid history by just listening songs. Hence, when you listen a song, it’s also better to search about the background of this song, like the Vocaloid Producer who made that song, the wiki about that song, or any interesting story behind that song. We hope that by searching these information, we can gather pieces of information and slowly build up the whole picture of Vocaloid history.

Ok, so we get the main idea, but where can we find these famous Vocaloid songs? Well, there are 2 ways.

3. Way 1 - The Hall of Legend song list

Talking about a list of famous Vocaloid songs, Hall of Legend is the best candidate. It is a list of songs with 1,000,000 views on Niconico. Here is the list of Hall of Legend:

• VOCALOID伝説入りの一覧
• UTAU伝説入り
• CeVIO伝説入り

Similarly we have a YouTube version, but for ten million views: (because hitting 1 million views in Youtube is too easy)

• YouTube上播放数量超过1000万的VOCALOID歌曲

Nice, we have the song list, but hold on, there are（by the time of writing this post) 800+ songs in the list 😱. We don’t have the effort to listen all of them, don’t we? So, we can sort the Hall of Legend song list in a certain order, and then based on your patient level, you (as a Miku fan) decide how many songs do you want to listen.

3.1. Sorting the Hall of Legend song list

First, let’s draw a table like following:

The same table can be used for the YouTube list, but instead of 1M views, we use 10M views, same applied for all “1M views” mentioned in the rest of this post

Basically, we divide the song list into cells based on release date and the time taken to reach 1M views. Next, we walk the table row by row. In each row, we walk the cell from left to right. In each cell, we find songs that satisfy the condition. For example, the first cell is songs that released in 2007 and hit 1M views within 100 days. Then we listen to these songs before moving on to the next cell.

So what is the point of this table? Well, each row has a significate meaning:

• First Row: These songs hit 1M views in the very short time (within 100 days). These songs make great impact to the Vocaloid history. Hence we should listen to these songs first. Some examples are メルト, 千本桜, 砂の惑星, 乙女解剖, and etc.

• Second Row: These songs hit 1M views within 365 days. A year of time tbh is still a short period. These songs, although are not as famous as the first row, usually becomes the symbol in the year. For example, magnet from 2009, 夕景イエスタデイ from 2013, 太陽系デスコ from 2017, まにまに from 2022, and etc.

  If you are impatient

  The first two rows together around 100~200 songs should be enough to give you a rough understanding of the Vocaloid history.

  For those who are impatient, you can stop by here, but I still highly recommend you keep on going to the third row if you can.

• Third Row: This row contains many songs (probably around 300-500?). These songs took a considerable amount of time to reach 1 million views, but still, they achieved that milestone. In this row, you will experience the different styles of Vocaloid songs from different eras, showcasing the diversity of Vocaloid music styles that has accumulated over the years. That’s why I strongly recommend listening to the Vocaloid songs in this row.

Upon here, you should be pretty familiar with Vocaloid and know decent amount of famous Vocaloid songs, and even have some understanding of the Vocaloid history. If you are still interested in listening more, or want further understand more about Vocaloid, you can continue the last row, but it is optional.

4. Way 2 - Music Game

Simply following the Hall of Legend song list one song at a time may still be quite tedious, even though we have sorted the list. So is there a more funnier way to listen Vocaloid songs? Fortunately, yes! Let’s play music games 😄!

The idea is like this, if a song is included in a music game, then such song should be quite popular. So, by playing music games, you get the fun, and at the same time you get known to some popular Vocaloid songs.

The music game that all Miku fans must play (Yes, must play, I am serious) is:

• 初音ミク -Project DIVA- series

And choose at least one of the following music games to play:

• Fan-made Project DIVA simulation like PPD or Project HeartBeat. Or fan-made song packs added on top of official Project DIVA games.
• OSU
• Project SEKAI
• Arcade music games like CHUNITHM series or maimai series

The drawback of using music game to get known to famous Vocaloid songs is that you can’t sort songs by release date. Fortunately, I have a workaround for you for Project DIVA series.

Anyways, let’s talk about how can you get familiar with Vocaloid while having fun with music games.

4.1. Must play: Project DIVA series

The best Vocaloid music game is Project DIVA series with no doubt. Here is the image of the Project DIVA series.

4.1.1. Two options

Project DIVA series included around 250+ songs.

As I said, playing music game can’t help to sort songs based on release date. However, we can sort the Project DIVA series based on release date of the game, as each Project DIVA includes the most popular Vocaloid songs of the time. By doing so, we can listen these 250+ songs in a roughly order of release date:

However, if you don’t care about the order (which I really don’t recommend to do so), you can play one of following masterpiece that include all 250+ songs:

• Project DIVA MegaMix+
  • Make sure you buy the VIP version
• Project DIVA AFT (Arcade Future Tone)
  • you would need to install MegaMix song pack to get the missing 10+ songs exists in MegaMix+, checkout the X Song Pack in Project DIVA Modding 2nd Discord server

4.1.2. Drawbacks of listening Vocaloid songs by playing Project DIVA only

There are two problems if you just use Project DIVA as the source of knowing Vocaloid songs:

1. Not be able to know new songs: Unfortunately, Project DIVA is already a dead title. Although MegaMix+ is released in 2022, it is pretty much a refresh of Project DIVA FT back in 2016, with only 10+ additional songs released in between 2017 to 2019 (The MegaMix song pack for AFT I mentioned earlier). Songs released in 2020 and after are not included in Project DIVA series at all.
2. Exclusive to Crypton Future Media (CFM) Vocaloid characters only: In another word. Project DIVA only contains songs sang by Miku, Rin, Len, Luka, Kaito, Meiko. Other characters like GUMI, IA, V Flower, Una, Kafu, etc are not included, despite they are also famous in Vocaloid history and have a lots of great songs.

That’s why playing one music game is not enough. We need a second one to fill these gaps.

4.2. Option 1: Fan-made Project DIVA simulation or mods

If you like the game play in Project DIVA, and you don’t want to leave Project DIVA to listen new songs, then you can try the following 3 options:

1. PPD: The first and oldest community-made simulation of Project DIVA on PC. It simulate the game play of Project Diva and brings it onto PC platform. PPD has its own rich community that is constantly creating new charts, which can be download from the PPD official website. Which charts should I play first? Well, that’s totally up to you 😁 because a song that worth to be made as a chart is already a quite popular song. Just be aware that there are also non-Vocaloid songs.
2. Project Heartbeat: A.k.a PH, similar to PPD but has more advance customization and features. You can find community-made custom charts from Steam Workshop. PH can even import charts from PPD and Project DIVA MegaMix+. Hence I personally prefer PH over PPD.
3. Project DIVA with mods: Instead of playing a simulation, you can choose to continue playing Project DIVA MegaMix+or AFT on your PC, but with MOD installed. Just head toward Project DIVA Modding 2nd Discord server and find the mod you want. The modding community is very active and you can find a large number of song packs to enrich your song list in Project DIVA MegaMix+ or AFT.

4.3. Option 2: OSU

OSU is a very popular rhythm game. It’s barrier is high, but if you can pass that barrier, you will find it very fun to play. OSU is not a Vocaloid specific music game, but it still has a lot of Vocaloid songs. Just like PPD, OSU has a very rich and active community so you can expect constant release of new charts for Vocaloid songs.

You can start by using Deardrop’s Vocaloid song pack as the starting point, which has a whopping of 570 charts.

Unfortunately, this is the only Vocaloid song pack I can find, and it has not been updated since 2015. However, you can always search “Vocaloid” on OSU official chart site, and sort results by chart release date to get newest Vocaloid charts.

4.4. Option 3: Project SEKAI

I personally would not recommend this game as many people including me have bad impression to Project SEKAI, but it is still worth to mention here.

Project SEKAI is a mobile game made by SEGA and released in 2020. Since then, SEGA proactively organize song commission events. Thanks for these events, the Vocaloid society got motivated and contributed a decent amount of songs. Some of them even reached 1M views and became a song in the Hall of Legend song list. Of course, qualified songs from these commission events became playable in Project SEKAI. So playing Project SEKAI can help you to get known to newer songs which Project DIVA doesn’t have, especially those released in 2020 and after.

Unfortunately, Project SEKAI also only include songs from CFM Vocaloid characters, so it doesn’t fully solve the problem of playing Project DIVA only 😪.

Another problem with Project SEKAI is that, initially only a few songs are unlocked. To unlock more songs, you have to spend effort and time to play this game, which sometime can be tedious and time-consuming.

Finally, Project SEKAI is a mobile game. So expect pay-to-win elements and Gacha in this game.

Due to these drawbacks, I would recommend to avoid Project SEKAI if possible, but if you really want to stay in Project SEKAI, I recommend you just to buy a second hand Project SEKAI account that has majority of songs unlocked to save yourself some times on unlocking songs.

4.5. Option 4: Arcade music games

Credit to Bilibili user 夜轮_Nightwheel for pointing out CHUNITHM and maimai

If arcade machines are available near your place, then try CHUNITHM series and maimai series.

Both series have 200+ Vocaloid songs each even though they are not Vocaloid specific (just like OSU). Not only that, both series are still proactively maintained (by SEGA. Yes, the same company who made Project DIVA series), and are not limited to Crypton Future Media (CFM) Vocaloid characters only. so you don’t need to worry about the two problems of Project DIVA mentioned above when playing CHUNITHM series or maimai series.

Obviously, the biggest disadvantage is that you need an arcade machine, which is only available in a few cities in the world unfortunately.

5. Way 3 = Way 2 + Way 1

Nothing prevent you from combining Way 1 and Way 2 together. You can start by playing Project DIVA, then you go to Way 1 and listen to songs that are not included in Project DIVA. Chance is that Project DIVA can save you a lots of time listening songs released in 2017 and before, so that you can focus on listening songs released after 2017.

This is also how I get familiar in Vocaloid 😂

6. Summary

Basically, you have two ways to find famous Vocaloid songs. You can either listen famous Vocaloid songs one by one in a certain order, or play music games. Of course, you can combine both ways. No matter what way you choose, you can become familiar with Vocaloid and the history.

That’s all for this post. I hope you like it and find it helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment below, or click on the “Report issue” link below to leave a comment in the GitHub Discussions. Any feedback is welcome.

Hello world! Welcome to my blog.

1. Intro

Today I am very happy to announce that my blog is publicly available. 🎉

All contents and the site configuration are available at the GitHub repository too.

The blog has:

• Dark theme
• i18n
• Comment system
• RSS supports with full content

The blog is generated by Hugo using this beautiful Hugo theme, DoIt (Sincerely thanks for HEIGE-PCloud for maintaining this Hugo theme). In fact, the way I setup my blog is very similar to the way how DoIt’s official demo setups. The blog is hosted on Vercel, which is visible from China’s mainland. So in theory, friends from China mainland should be able to visit my blog without VPNs or proxies.

2. Why do I need a blog?

I write posts, but only friends in WeChat Moments can see them. I really hope there exists a platform where all friends of mine from overall the world can see my posts. In another word, A WeChat Moments but globalized. Not only that, I’d like to write in different languages so friends from both China and Canada can read my post easily. That’s why building a blog with i18n support becomes the best solution. The only downside is the privacy concern. Since the blog is publicly available on the internet, you can’t share something sensitive or too emotional on the blog. Fortunately, I am not the type of person who likes to share too much.

Well, talking about post writing, maybe some people would recommend: why not WordPress? Bilibili posts? Or Medium? Or Zhihu? Or whatever platform?

So here comes the second reason why I need to build my own blog, instead of using the existing platform. The harsh reality is that Internet has no memory. Please take a look at the first section of this article. Posts you published just mean money and view count for those service providers. Once the value is gone, they delete your posts for their convenience. What’s even worse is that this article and this sue case have pointed out: You never owned your accounts! Service providers like Google, Baidu have the absolute right of managing your accounts, and they can ban or delete your account whenever they want without notification (Now, I somehow understand why people are promoting Web3.0).

So how to gain back the true ownership of your contents? The answer is building your own blog. How to make your post stays longer on internet? The answer is hosting the blog yourself. Can we avoid building a blog from scratch using Angular, React, Vue or whatever frontend frameworks? Fortunately, yes! We have static site generators, like Hexo, Hugo, etc. The static site generator handles the generation of the source code of your blog so that you can focus on content creation without worrying about the code. (Well, you still need to spend the effort to choose and setup the theme to prettify your blog, but trust me, it is worth the time as there are many great themes with rich features you can choose from to fulfill your needs.)

With the static site generator, I am able to manage everything about my blog on my PC locally, but I still need to host the blog on the internet. For this, I chose GitHub and Vercel. Although I should worry about being banned on GitHub just like this post and this post, there are many great alternatives to GitHub and Vercel I can choose from. In the worst-case scenario, I can self-hosted my blog from my own home lab. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not promoting sharing illegal contents or anything violating the law, but who knows if one day your GitHub account would get banned for no reason and without any warning.

3. So what contents am I going to post in the future?

I got this covered😉. Simply take a look at the About page of this blog.

Although I can’t guarantee the frequency of writings, feel free to follow my blog, and hopefully we’ll meet again.