First of all, many thanks for such an informative forum. I'm a newbie to the Harmony series but have past experience with other universal remotes.

Question (and I've searched with no luck):

On the "Devices" screen is there a way to customize the order of the components (from a total of three screens)? I'd like to have my 3 most frequently required components on the first screen.

You can't change the device order. The device order is assigned dynamically. The devices at the top of the list will be the ones used by current activity (activity you were in before pressing the device button).

There's no way what so ever? I am a bit "tech-savy"

Unless you can decompile the download file, change it and recompile it - no.

You can't set the order - as jlet says those in your current Activity are always on the first page.
As you're tech-savvy you'll realise that once you've set up Activities to work just the way you want them, you will never need to use Devices at all - that they're in the software in case you need to make small adjustments to Activities, but on the remote they're superfluous to requirements.

I can't even change the order on the Activities screen?
After I originially posted, I was going through various threads and found out it is possible to change the order (but difficult from what I understand). However, I can't find exactly how.
As in other numerous posts, sometimes it easier/quicker/specific reason/personal choice/etc. to directly access devices (regardless of how tech-savvy on is).

You were going along fine until you implied "specific reason" and stated "personal choice". Those aren't relative statements in the eyes of Harmony fans.

I'm sure if you dig hard enough you may find something, but so you know.... To a few hardcore regulars in this forum. If it's not a standard feature of the Harmony line, it's simply something you don't need. At least that's what I've been told anyway.

Yes, you can change the activity order, just not the devices. The devices are dynamically sorted depending on the activity. And I don't agree with Logitech here and think the user should be able to specify both the activity and device order. I also think it should offer true Macros (more than just 5 commands) even though the NEED for them is rare. The software could be easier to use. It's not perfect, but it's also not nearly as bad as some people would have you believe.

Our answers were to your question about ordering Devices.
On the Activities page there is a button clearly marked "Re-Order Activities", so for both reasons there seemed no need to mention that feature.

About your comment "sometimes it easier....to directly access devices" - what is stopping you from doing that in the present system?
All the buttons and commands are always available in tabular form, ready for you to make any adjustments.

As akirby suggests it would make more sense for Logi to allow re-ordering devices even though that is of very little use, and there are certainly other details such as sequence length that seem to have been designed without proper professional consideration.
The same applies to the software, which works reasonably well, but again contains some details that look as if an inexperienced person wrote them.

I believe the data limitations (5 command sequence) are driven by memory limitations and the current software architecture. I've seen hundreds of similar issues with software that causes you to do things that don't make sense to the user. Just trying to point out that it's not necessarily just a design decision and in most cases it's a necessary trade-off that the developers don't like. Then again, they could be total idiots.

You have to also understand that Logitech inherited this software from Intrigue which was a very small Canadian company that started the Harmony line. Logitech has chosen not to totally rewrite the software which is probably a simple cost consideration.

One of the details that impresses me most about Harmonys is their memory capacity - competitors restrict the number of devices and actions far more, and run out of memory quickly, whereas the Harmonys never do so.
Also I'm content to write off the elementary blunders in the software to the previous owners, though any professional at Logi could surely have found and corrected them in a matter of minutes!

Could you give an example of such a competitor..? Not trying to start something here. I'm just curious what manufacturer that's producing comparible product is doing what you're saying.

I was thinking mainly of my own experience before I came to Harmonys. Immediately before them there were three or four models of Kameleon One For All, but I wouldn't claim those as directly comparable.

Not necessarily the case, since the Harmony One has doesn't have the facility (that some earlier Harmony remotes have) to drop into a device context to execute a command in the current activity. For example, on my old Harmony remote (688), I could change my pre-amp bass management from within the current activity even though it required the left & right arrow keys which were assigned to a different use in that activity, because the control context of that device was available for a selected subgroup of device commands in that activity. Now I have to switch modes from the activity to the device and select & execute the command from there.

It may not seem like a big change, but a few extra keystrokes and a change of mode can be a major irritation. The alternative would be to have two identical activities differing only in bass management setting for every kind of activity that could have either stereo or surround-sound (and since stereo can often be decoded into passable surround, that means all audio activities).

How did you do that on the 688? Couldn't you just map the left and right arrows to the LCD or unused hard buttons?

Edit - never mind. I just realized you're talking about sound and picture buttons and yes, those can come in handy. But you can avoid going to device mode by mapping the commands to soft or hard buttons.