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 am studying Ceramics right now and are in the midst of Labs and glaze testing for our final exam. I have not had time to study the program completely but the little I did was certainly v. helpful in my assignment."
"I just want to learn as much as I can so that I can come up with custom glazes that do what I want them to do. I don't want to be a slave to others' ideas, nor do I want to hope for someone to find a miracle glaze for me. This is where I differ a bit from my mentors."
"Thanks so very much! I am impressed with the software and your responsive customer service."
"Despite my having told them about Insight, they still mix up large batches of "baby-poop" glazes that craze."
"I formulate clays and glazes for a clay manufacturer ... Insight has been a valuable asset to our formulation process and the testing procedures you recommend have been of great use to us over the years as well. "
"I am exploring the software today and learning a lot. I am just getting back to making pottery in my retirement. I am determined to take advantage of the wonderful communication advances that have been made since I was a youngster. The software illuminates much of the rote learning I remember from student days."