I tried using pre elements to store data live and start data. However, the input field is not initialized unless there is at least one character of whitespace in the HTML element for storing the data, or the HTML element for storing the data is closed immediately i.e. <pre id="foo"/> which is bad. This issue is annoying because my editor automatically removes whitespace between empty tags so I cannot get the initial data to show up.

Here is a codepen replicating the issue. the first mavo app shows the problem, the second mavo app is the expected behavior.