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 been using Insight to get smooth, matt glazes without crazing on various sculpture clays for cone 10, 6 and 03. I also use Insight to substitute Canadian materials for the English ones in my glaze recipes. Insight seems to be a robust program and I am glad that I chose this one. But I still am leaning how to use it fully. Also, I find the educational section of your website informative and it is very generous of you to share your expertise with the the rest of us. Thank you so much for your kind assistance."
"I love this site, this program...and I must say...in my 30 plus years in this field I have met only a few very very authentic people...you are definitely one of them. My hat is off to you for working and improving this software and really caring that it works for people!"
"I have recently taken up hobby pottery after a career as a lecturer and software engineer. I was looking for a disciplined way of dealing with glazes and was disappointed by the lack of explanation in glaze recipe books. I stumbled over your site which does hold out the promise of being able to develop a principled understanding of what is going on."
"I'm having so much fun with this program that I'm not making pots I'm designing and fixing glazes!"
"I am the last person i thought would ever get to understand glaze making .... I know there's more to learn than what I have leaned , but for my purposes I have come a long way."
"Well, I must tell you that you are currently my hero and I am spreading the word about INSIGHT to any of the potters I know that will listen, (although I must confess that I think many get scared to death when I talk about glaze chemistry.)"