Scenario: You need to expose the same app on different screens - let's say a standard 15''-17'' a portable 10'' and a mobile 4'', possibly working on different resolutions.
Question: Do you attempt to go for a liquid layout that gets rearranged depending on the real estate available or do you roll N (one for each range) separate UI layers, optimized for each specific supported resolution/screen-size.
What's the industry standard on this kind of problems?
Does it make sense to come up with very trick layouts partitioning the screen in priority areas that will go away /come back when the screen gets resized one way or the other?
We all know iPhone apps (or any other palm device) can't be nothing like the desktop version, so I am assuming in that case (4'' or less) you're forced to roll different UIs, but is there a middle ground (let's say between 13'' - 7'' screens, with the latter requiring fingers as primary input) where it makes sense to go for the liquid layout?