The PDF Manual.
Modified: November 20, 2021
Download it from the Files panel in your Insight-live.com account or from the home page at https://digitalfire.com (current downloads only include the program file, manual, starter recipe, materials - overrides data is built in).
We moved functionality to a private account at Insight-Live.com - because people now expect to get at their data from any device anywhere. And for our survival. Ceramic lab work is much bigger than glaze chemistry, it is a physical world where testing, observation, record-keeping are vital. Insight-Live is about maintaining that data. Its recipes share pictures, they have firing schedules, notes, development history, testing data, links, they belong to projects. And they accumulate into the thousands and are easy to find and compare.
Desktop Insight, by default, opens and saves recipes to its INSIGHTDATA.DB recipe database file (that file is in your documents/insight folder, it can be uploaded and imported into Insight-live). If Desktop Insight does not find the INSIGHTDATA.DB file on startup, it imports, into its database, all the recipe files (e.g. RCP, RCX) it finds in your documents/insight/recipe folder (it does not erase the original files, but no longer uses them). From then on, when you choose File -> Open (not File -> Open File System) you open recipes from its database (using the Recipe Database Window). When you Save you save to the database. See page 94 of the manual for more information.
Because you have to be able to compare ten recipes side-by-side. For physics as well as chemistry. And people need to be able to find thousands on any device from anywhere.
Insight FAQ
There is a direct relationship between the way ceramic glazes fire and their chemistry. Insight is a calculation tool anyone can use to learn and harness the power of glaze chemistry.
Without glaze chemistry you'll never really have control and you could be a slave to your suppliers or the trafficing in recipes that never work.
Overwhelmed by glaze chemistry? Try starting here.
"I have had wonderful success with INSIGHT...one supplier here said that what 'little' practical benefit I would get from INSIGHT would not even justify the initial cost..I always preferred to veiw glazes from the oxide viewpoint and as a 'total package' as opposed to base and additions, and with the aid of your program I was able to review and update my chemistry knowledge quickly..and was able to produce and modify glaze to suit my needs efficiently with little time or material wasted. The excellent results I have had has definitely changed their tune. She called BBS 3/20/95 read info. Downloaded info 5/21/95."
"Despite my having told them about Insight, they still mix up large batches of "baby-poop" glazes that craze."
"Also want to thank you for the Digital Fire program... It is a valuable resource, especially to small business folks like us who do not have the platform of big industry to work from."
"Love the software! I never took chemistry - not even in high school. Yet, I can take those unity formulas from the Boraq pages (like lavender, butterscotch, the iron red) and create a recipe that actually works and looks real close to the pictures on the web pages. I have also converted GB recipes over to Boraq and it is hard to see any difference, except for 1 recipe."
"For years I have told any potter who would listen that INSIGHT completely changed my knowledge of glazes and gave me an understanding and control I never thought I would have. I can't thank you enough!"
"This has got my spirit soaring with enthusiasm. This is great stuff .. send out the dancers."