clean up readme a bit

README.md

@@ -1,6 +1,22 @@
-this is a simple [maubot](https://github.com/maubot/maubot) plugin which interacts with a [matrix-registration](https://github.com/zeratax/matrix-registration) deployment and generates invite tokens.
+this is a simple [maubot](https://github.com/maubot/maubot) plugin which interacts with a
+[matrix-registration](https://github.com/zeratax/matrix-registration) deployment and generates invite tokens.
 
-modify the config to point to your matrix-registration url, include your admin secret to authenticate, and ensure that you're in the list of approved users.
+NOTICE: this bot depends on Maubot engine and matrix-registration. it does not work with synapse's native registration
+tokens. reasons you may still prefer this project:
+
+1. you already have set up maubot
+2. you already have set up matrix-registration
+3. this bot only requires administrative access to matrix-registration, whereas the ability to generate synapse
+   registration tokens would require the bot to be a server administrator
+
+if you would prefer to use native synapse registration tokens, please check out
+[matrix-registration-bot](https://github.com/moan0s/matrix-registration-bot/), an unrelated but similar project which is
+a standalone bot (no maubot engine).
+
+## usage
+
+modify the config to point to your matrix-registration url, include your admin secret to authenticate, and ensure that
+you're in the list of approved users.
 
 *please note* that matrix-registration versions BELOW 0.9.0 have different API endpoints, expected date structures, json
 arguments, etc. and require the `legacy_mr` value in your config to be set to `True`! If your matrix-registration

invite.py

@@ -69,9 +69,14 @@ class Invite(Plugin):
         try:
             response = await self.http.post(f"{self.config['api_url']}/token", headers=headers, \
                     json={"max_usage": 1, "one_time": True, "ex_date": ex_date, "expiration_date": ex_date})
+            status = response.status
             resp_json = await response.json()
         except Exception as e:
-            await evt.respond(f"request failed: {e.message}")
+            body = await response.text()
+            await evt.respond(f"Uh oh! I got a {status} response from your registration endpoint:<br /> \
+                        {body}<br /> \
+                        which prompted me to produce this error:<br /> \
+                        <code>{e.message}</code>", allow_html=True)
             return None
         try:
             token = resp_json['name']

maubot.yaml

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 maubot: 0.1.0
 id: org.jobmachine.invitebot
-version: 0.3.0
+version: 0.3.1
 license: MIT
 modules:
 - invite