Render empty textareas

[andreaswolf]

Resolves: #838

[finwe]

Thanks for the PR. Frankly, I am not entirely fond of changes to the code that work for some, but could cause problems for others. Especially when the method of resolving an issue is in using a seemingly unrelated internal variable. I'll try to test this, but I make no promises.

[kevinpapst]

@finwe totally understand your reasoning, still would be nice if we could render an empty textarea somehow.