dasBlog Patch - Add Choice of Dash "-" for Post Title URL Spaces

I want dasBlog to do something it can't do.  Specifically, I want my blog posts to have URLs like this http://bentaylor.org/Software-Development-Tools-List.aspx.  Note the dashes between the words in the post title?  dasBlog does not do this.  dasBlog will only do spaces (using the + sign) or no spaces.

Why do I want dashes?  Well my reading on the subject of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) would suggest that Google sees the dash as a space and therefore understands the individual words in your title.  Matt Cutts head of the Google Webspam Team backs this up in his post Dashes vs. Underscores. 

Why not stick with the "+" character, is that not as good?  I'm not sure.  All I know is that IIS7 does not like the plus sign and Google may not like the plus sign.  So I am going to patch it.  I have convinced myself that this is not blogging procrastination.  Once URLs are in the wild you can't change them (well you can, but it is a pain in the 301).

Changing the dasBlog Configuration Page so You can Select "-" for Post Title Spaces

I have made a patch for dasBlog that enhances the option for replacing spaces in a Post Title Permalink.

Pre-Patch Permalink Section:  Currently you configure dasBlog title Permalinks with the following section:

Post-Patch Permalink Section:  The patch (I will shortly submit) changes the configuration section to look like this:

In the new configuration, you have a choice of character to replace the spaces with (in the dropdown).  The two (hard-coded*) choices provided are "-" and "+".  For backwards compatibility the default is still "+" and the underlying SiteConfig for the CheckBox remains the same.  However, you can now select a different string to replace the spaces with and this selection will be saved in a new SiteConfig property called titlePermalinkSpaceReplacement.

This blog is already running this patch and it is working well so far!

Update:  This patch should not impact any URLs you have in the wild, that contain the "+".  These will still work, even if you switch over to the "-".  However, if you do that, you should really set up 301 responses from your old URL to the new one.

* I have hard-coded the choices as I do not believe it is something that people would want to configure.  YANGNI.