Encoding/decoding contents

[misterm]

I have used several options to do encoding/decoding, but i somehow feel there might be better or easier ways. There isn't much 'good' documentation on the web, so i thought a post here might do the trick.

What is the best way to use decode/encode WYSI-content?
We want to make sure we output clean code, stuff like &amps; and being able to use accents etc.

I might be nice to have some sort of ultimate solution. So, share your thoughts.