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 want a more scientific approach ... the way the things were getting done was sort of copy (from acquaintances or friends from other companies) and paste (in this company) of the compositions. I need to teach my people in the company how to work out the composition for body and glaze."
"Your programme looks absolutely wonderful and I am anxious to install and start working with it...It was actually my client that found your information online and forwarded me the URL. I was amazed at the level of work that you have put into developing your programme and the information you include is priceless. I can see this is both a learning tool and a quality control tool, with the option of upgrading to a server for application over a wide area network."
"Tony, thank you, this has already been very helpful. I've been doing some tinkering with INSIGHT and see that the program really allows you to see past the items in a recipe to the oxide functions they are contributing to a glaze."
"I taught glaze research for years, (yes we used Insight quite a bit!) .. I used 'Insight' to successfully convert Tom Colemans copper red recipe into UK ingredients. "
"You have been a great mentor and we swear by that Insight program."