I'm attempting to install an IR dimmer switch to control my harbor breeze ceiling fan (both light and fan). There are so many colored wires under the lamp bulb socket. I need to know if anyone has a description for what wires control what functions of the light and or fan so that I can hook up my dimmer control unit.

Basically, there is a black and a red wire coming from the wall socket. The fan canopy has many wires. For the fan part, it looks like there's an L-1-2-3 configuration. Gray-L, Red-1, Brown-2, Purple-3. It looks like there's a lone blue, a pair of yellow, a pair of orange, and a pair of white. There are black wires coming from the light side and looks like a lone white as well. I'm not really sure; there are two pull chains.

The IR wall plate configuration comes with a canopy module that has 4 wires. White is neutral, red is light, black is live, and yellow is fan. What do I do?

I don't know all the specifics here and I am far from being an electrician but maybe I can help. Electrical wires of any color besides green or white typically are "hot" like any black wire, the different colors helps to track where they go, all neutral wires will be white because they can be connected together regardless. The last two lines of your question seem to be all you need to worry about, if all the other wires you list are not connected to anything this may be beyond me. The black and white wires on the remote unit connect to the same colors from your power source, the red goes to the light as you stated, often a lone blue wire or whatever wire goes to a black or cluster of black wires leading to the light, the number of sockets equals the number of black wires in that cluster. The yellow "fan" wire will go to the one that powers the motor, usually leads to a "speed control" box. The light kit itself needs to be connected to the neutral and "hot" lines on the main fan unit, most modern fans will have a quick connect on the bottom for that. The white "neutral" lines from fan, light and remote box will come together and connect to the house neutral, but the "hots" will stay separate. There should also be a bare copper or green grounding wire in the fan, make sure that is connected to your house ground wire and the ceiling box.