DOC: how-to-guides/config-settings: updates

Use continuous tense in the title as done for other page titles in the
same section. Simplify and improve wording. Update for latest pip
releases.

Author: dnicolodi

docs/how-to-guides/config-settings.rst

@@ -4,21 +4,18 @@
 
 .. _how-to-guides-config-settings:
 
-*************************
-Use build config settings
-*************************
+***************************
+Using build config settings
+***************************
 
-Build config settings are settings you can pass to ``meson-python`` when
-building your project. They can be use to customize the build in some
-aspect.
+Build config settings can be used to customize some aspects of the
+build. See the :doc:`../reference/config-settings` reference for a list
+of the settings implemented by ``meson-python``.
 
-Several Python build front-ends exist, with different ways to pass
-configuration settings to the build back-end. The most popular are
-`pypa/build`_, which uses the ``-C`` command line option, and `pip`_,
-which uses the ``--config-settings`` option. For example:
-
-.. _pypa/build: https://github.com/pypa/build
-.. _pip: https://github.com/pypa/pip
+How build config settings are specified depends on the Python package
+build front-end used. The most popular build front-end are `build`_ and
+`pip`_. These use the ``--config-settings`` long command line option or
+the ``-C`` short command line option:
 
 .. tab-set::
 
@@ -41,29 +38,24 @@ which uses the ``--config-settings`` option. For example:
                --config-settings=setup-args="-Doption=disable" \
                --config-settings=compile-args="-j6"
 
-This examples use the ``python -m pip wheel`` command to build a Python
-wheel that can be later installed or distributed. To build a package and
-immediately install it, just replace ``wheel`` with ``install``.
 
-See the :ref:`how-to-guides-meson-args` guide for more examples. Refer to
-the `pypa/build documentation`_ or to the `pip documentation`_ for more
-information.
+Refer to the `build`_ and `pip`_ documentation for details.  This
+example uses the ``python -m pip wheel`` command to build a Python wheel
+that can be later installed or distributed. To build a package and
+immediately install it, replace ``wheel`` with ``install``.  See the
+:ref:`how-to-guides-meson-args` guide for more examples.
 
-.. _pypa/build documentation: https://pypa-build.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
-.. _pip documentation: https://pip.pypa.io/
 
 .. admonition:: Passing multiple settings
    :class: caution
 
-   Please note that, while ``pypa/build`` concatenates arguments for the
-   same key passed to the ``-C`` option, ``pip`` up to version 23.0.1 does
-   not offer any way to set a build config setting to a list of strings:
-   later values for the same key passed to ``--config-settings`` override
-   earlier ones.
+   Please note that ``pip`` prior to 23.1 did not offer a way to set a
+   build config setting to a list of strings: later values for the
+   same key passed to ``--config-settings`` override earlier ones,
+   effectively limiting the number of options that can be passed to
+   each command invoked in the build process to one. This limitation
+   has been lifted in ``pip`` release 23.1.
 
-   This effectively limits the number of options that can be passed to each
-   command invoked in the build process to one. This limitation is tracked
-   in `pip issue #11681`_. This limitation should be removed in the next
-   version of pip.
 
-.. _pip issue #11681: https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/11681
+.. _build: https://pypa-build.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
+.. _pip: https://pip.pypa.io/