How do you enable edit for empty fields?

I'm interested in the same thing. I used this to display the field titles hoping that it would play nice with Edit, but it returned erros: http://www.ygerasimov.com/show-empty-fields

Also tried the module Empty Fields (http://drupal.org/project/empty_fields), which allows you to show a text for empty fields. Thought this would work, but also caused issues.

I'm also looking forward to the functionality. When I first create a content, I suppose it makes sense to create an empty node, and enable in-place editing to edit it.

Yes, I'd love to see this working. I'm working on a site where ideally the users never have to do anything but edit in place, but as it is now if they delete an entry, I have to go in and re-add content to it to make it editable for them again.

For now, I've just made the field required so if someone clears it out, they aren't able to save.

will setting default values work?

In some cases you dont want to set a default value. Im also looking for a solution to this problem.

what would be nice is if instead of using something like "empty fields," it could leverage the new elements in drupal 8 and specifically make use of the placeholder element to indicate that a field should be editable (that way it doesn't requires something like the field formatter, which is required by empty fields module)

like, if it sees a placeholder then it is editable

You don't. That's fundamentally against the principles of in-place editing. You can only in-place edit what the end user would see. If you can't see the field, you can't in-place edit it.

In-place editing is not a replacement for "full/regular editing". It exists to make the experience of making small changes nicer.

thanks. for those who do need to enable edit on an empty field, it's also possible with "editable fields"