Problem : due to lack of dual monitor support (all I get from nomachine is one giant window, without any concept of monitors) my productivity has plummeted in this new job. If I had dual monitor support, I would be able to easily maximize a window to take up an entire monitor.

I could recover my productivity partially if there were a way (was easy on CDE, though CDE was lousy in other ways) to set how big a window is allowed to blow up to when the Maximize command is issued.

I'm not able to do this. I'm on KDE 4.3.4 and I go through :

System Settings > Look and Feel > Window Behavior > Window Specific

I click on New

here, I set nothing but description in the Window Tab,
select only Normal Window in the Window Extra tab
than, in Workarounds, I set Maximum size to 3000,3000

problem is that, now, maximizing (double click title bar or use shortcut) does nothing.

Whereas, if I set a low value for Maximum size, like 1000,1000, all windows are immediately constrained to this, but, if I make a window smaller and try maximizing, nothing happens.

Please help. Thanks

A couple of suggestions:
First, Kwin supports partial tiling by dragging windows to the sides and corners of the screen to resize them to fill that half or quarter of the screen. Shortcuts for this feature are listed under KWin as "Quick Tile Window to the ...", with defaults for Meta+Up/Down/Left/Right.

Second, for more advanced functionality, you can look into KWin Scripting.

Thanks, that seems a solid lead. I'll take a look.

I am on KDE version 4.3.3 and I don't see the "Quick Tile.." under KWin when I get to Keyboard shortcuts.. global.. All I have are :

Activate Window Demanding Attention
Block Global Shortcuts
Close Window
Desktop Screenshot to Clipboard
Hide Window Border
Keep Window Above Others
Keep Window Below Others
Keep Window on All Desktops
Kill Window
Lower Window
Make Window Fullscreen
Maximize Window
Maximize Window Horizontally
Maximize Window Vertically
Minimize Window
Mouse Emulation
Move Window
Pack Grow Window Horizontally
Pack Grow Window Vertically
Pack Shrink Window Horizontally
Pack Shrink Window Vertically
Pack Window Down
Pack Window Up
Pack Window to the Left
Pack Window to the Right
Raise Window
Resize Window
Setup Window Shortcut
Shade Window
Suspend Compositing
Switch One Desktop Down
Switch One Desktop Up
Switch One Desktop to the Left
Switch One Desktop to the Right
Switch to Desktop 1
Switch to Desktop 2
Switch to Desktop 3
Switch to Desktop 4
Switch to Desktop 5
Switch to Desktop 6
Switch to Desktop 7
Switch to Desktop 8
Switch to Desktop 9
Switch to Desktop 10
Switch to Desktop 11
Switch to Desktop 12
Switch to Desktop 13
Switch to Desktop 14
Switch to Desktop 15
Switch to Desktop 16
Switch to Desktop 17
Switch to Desktop 18
Switch to Desktop 19
Switch to Desktop 20
Switch to Next Desktop
Switch to Next Screen
Switch to Previous Desktop
Switch to Screen 0
Switch to Screen 1
Switch to Screen 2
Switch to Screen 3
Switch to Screen 4
Switch to Screen 5
Switch to Screen 6
Switch to Screen 7
Toggle Window Raise/Lower
Walk Through Desktop List
Walk Through Desktop List (Reverse)
Walk Through Windows
Walk Through Windows (Reverse)
Window One Desktop Down
Window One Desktop Up
Window One Desktop to the Left
Window One Desktop to the Right
Window Operations Menu
Window Screenshot to Clipboard
Window to Desktop 1
Window to Desktop 2
Window to Desktop 3
Window to Desktop 4
Window to Desktop 5
Window to Desktop 6
Window to Desktop 7
Window to Desktop 8
Window to Desktop 9
Window to Desktop 10
Window to Desktop 11
Window to Desktop 12
Window to Desktop 13
Window to Desktop 14
Window to Desktop 15
Window to Desktop 16
Window to Desktop 17
Window to Desktop 18
Window to Desktop 19
Window to Desktop 20
Window to Next Desktop
Window to Next Screen
Window to Previous Desktop
Window to Screen 0
Window to Screen 1
Window to Screen 2
Window to Screen 3
Window to Screen 4
Window to Screen 5
Window to Screen 6
Window to Screen 7

I'll take a look at KWin scripting..