Within Opus it is possible to create folders, files etc. whose file names start with (any amount of) spaces. Is this intended?
Windows Explorer does not allow creation of such names (will truncate any spaces at the beginning), for example try to create such on Desktop (not within Opus).
Yes, it's allowed. Win32 has no problem with filenames that start with a space.
Problems can be caused by names which end with a space, and those have to be created, renamed, etc. in a special way which bypasses the Win32 filename rules. But there's nothing special about names which start with a space.
For example, try this from a command prompt:
mkdir " test"
mkdir "test "
The first will create " test" exactly as you requested. The second will create "test" as the space at the end is ignored by the normal Win32 filename rules. Opus behaves in the same way.
I actually discovered this accidentally and it was unwanted (I probably copy/pasted name with extra space at the beginning). Could this be made configurable via Preferences/Miscellaneous/Advanced togglable with true/false? That would make it consistent with how Explorer/shell behaves.