Content not showing in running header/footer (asciidoctor-pdf, maven, windows)

Hi, I'm currently evaluating asciidoc as possible new format for our project documentation. Most things worked like a charm with only a little effort. Still there is one problem I haven't found a solution for yet: when converting my document to pdf (with asciidoctorj-pdf-maven plugin) my running header and footer has no content. I studied the theming guide and I already see border lines at the top and bottom of my pages as I configured them in the yaml. I can change the layout of those border lines, e.g. make the border appear dashed. But the content I enter is never rendered. I have set <pagenums/> as attribute in the configuration of the asciidoctor-maven-plugin. In the footer of my document there is a border line (configured by the yaml) and the page number (not configured by me - this is the default when the content is empty). Here is an extract from my theme.yaml:

header:
  height: 1in
  line_height: 1
  border_color: CCCCCC
  border_width: 0.5
  border_style: dashed
  recto:
    center:
      content: '{document-title}'
  verso:
    center:
      content: $header_recto_center_content

This is my toolchain:

• Windows 7
• Java 6
• Maven 3.0.4
• asciidoctor-maven-plugin 1.5.3
• jruby version: 1.7.26
• asciidoctor-j-pdf: 1.5.0-alpha.11
• asciidoctor-j:1.5.4

I also tried this toolchain with the same effects as above:

• Windows 7
• Java 8
• Maven 3.0.4
• jruby version: 9.0.5.0
• prawn-version: 2.0.2
• asciidoctor-j-pdf: 1.5.0-alpha.11
• asciidoctor-j:1.5.4.1

Is there anything I am missing? Many thanks, Eike.

Given the setup you mention I assume you already saw the example (https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-maven-examples/tree/master/asciidoctor-pdf-with-theme-example).
I am no expert, but I have played with it and I've seen some syntax differences that in my case allowed me to make your extract work. Still, according to the documentation (https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-pdf/blob/master/docs/theming-guide.adoc)  I think that your extract should also work.

Instead of :

header:
  ...
  recto:
    center:
      content: '{document-title}'

I used

header:
  ...
  recto_content:
   center: '{document-title}'

I also added the footer from the example and it showed fine.

Right now I don't have a Ruby environment and I won't be able to replicate this directly in Ruby until tomorrow.

Forgot to mention, I tried the example from the documentation:

header:
  height: 0.75in
  line_height: 1
  recto:
    center:
      content: '(C) ACME -- v{revnumber}, {docdate}'
  verso:
    center:
      content: $header_recto_center_content
footer:
  height: 0.75in
  line_height: 1
  recto:
    right:
      content: '{section-or-chapter-title} | *{page-number}*'
  verso:
    left:
      content: '*{page-number}* | {chapter-title}'

... [show rest of quote]

And the text did not show either.

My setup:
Windows 7
Java 8
Maven 3.3.9
jruby version: 9.0.5.0
prawn-version: 2.1.0 (the last)
asciidoctor-j-pdf: 1.5.0-alpha.11
asciidoctor-j:1.5.4.1

Aaaahhh, you made my day!

Your solution

recto : content : right

 instead of

 recto : right : content

 works in both of my environments. The sequence in the theming guide (and also some examples I found on the internet) is wrong - at least for the current version, maybe it was correct with earlier versions.

Many thanks for your help !

Just in case you want to work on the final version or, just as part of the evaluation add that "Java integration does not limit usage of last version" :P, I created an example using the gem directly and you extract.
And obviously it works as the documentation says.

https://github.com/abelsromero/asciidoctor-maven-examples/tree/pdf-gem-usage/asciidoctor-pdf-with-theme-example

Steps are simple, using the original example:
1 · Removed AsciidoctorJ dependency from plugin
2 · Added asciidoctor-pdf (gem) depedency
3 · Enjoy
Note there's no need to use the <require> attribute here because this is done by AsciidoctorJ automatically.

Thanks for your help, now I am able to generate documents as I need them and I am aware of parts to modify later when we are able to use a newer asciidoctor-pdf version.

Since we're stuck with java 6 in our toolchain at the moment I can not switch right away to using the ruby gems directly as you suggested, abelsromero, so I will use the legacy configuration and syntax until we can make the move to a more current java (newer jruby needs at least java 7).

My sincere thanks for your kind help!

Eike