Why do my generated Javadocs look awful?

Question

I am trying to create javadoc html files for my project. I generate them through the Maven Javadoc plugin (maven-javadoc-plugin). I am using Maven 2.2.1. Everything is generated so that all the necessary information is there, but the HTML looks just awful. So bad that I don’t want to publish it that way. Here is a screenshot:

( NOTE: Yes, I see that the message “JavaScript is disabled in your browser.” Even if I click on IE 8 a warning about active content and turn it on, it does not matter)

There are all kinds of unnecessary line breaks, and the basic formatting is just shit. Am I missing something? I expected to see Javadocs created that look similar to what I see in Eclipse if I hover over a class or method and see a Javadoc popup.

I tried adding the settings to my POM file, but I really don't know what I am doing when it comes to setting up the Javadoc generator. Here is what I have at the moment (inside the <reporting> element):

 <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.9</version> <configuration> <javadocExecutable>C:\Java\jdk1.7.0_05\bin\javadoc.exe</javadocExecutable> <javadocVersion>1.7</javadocVersion> <locale>en_US</locale> <show>package</show> <verbose /> </configuration> </plugin> 

Any suggestions?

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UPDATE:

The solution provided by Paulius worked perfectly. I deleted the section above from the <reporting> section, as it was completely unnecessary. I added a new <plugin> element as it is listed below. My POM file now contains this new block:

 <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.8.1</version> <executions> <execution> <id>attach-javadocs</id> <goals> <goal>jar</goal> </goals> </execution> </executions> </plugin> ... </plugins> </build> 

Here's what the fixed output looks like:

Answer 1

Try removing the maven-javadoc-plugin section from reporting . If you are using Maven 3, the report section is outdated and should be deleted.

Try adding the following:

 <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.8.1</version> <executions> <execution> <id>attach-javadocs</id> <goals> <goal>jar</goal> </goals> </execution> </executions> </plugin> 

to the maven plugins section and run it. I use maven-javadoc-plugin like this and it generates regular javadocs.

Hope this helps.