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 love the Insight software as I can compare glazes based on the chemistry. I enter the recipes into Insight to get the chemical analysis of the glaze then enter that into spreadsheets to compare multiple glaze recipes. I had taken a Materials Analysis class at the University of Minnesota .. the Insight software was indispensible for me when I took this class."
"I took my laptop to my friend's studio to show her Insight. She has decades of experience and was only mildly curious. But when she saw it, she had more and more questions about the materials she's used for years."
"I'd like to say how much I enjoy using Insight for developing my clays and glazes...Again thank you for the wonderful product and support."
"I participated in a workshop with .. when he was talking about glazes and demonstrating his techniques, I steeled myself to ask him if he worries about the functionality of his glazes. I figured everyone would laugh at me for bringing up such a subject, but I felt like it should at least be said, given the amount of young student potters in the group if nothing else. As expected he said he didn't worry about that. High fired glazes shouldn't pose any problems, was what he said. "Why is that?", I asked, "Is it because they are fired to such high temperatures that you don't worry?" He said it was. I want you to know that this is all a big challenge for me. But I'm determined to give it a good shot .. this is all a big challenge for me. But I'm determined to give it a good shot."
"Insight has been a big help to me in understanding my glazes and making new ones. Best money I ever spent for software."
"Thank you so much! I was overlooking an important step! I am sure that Leah will appreciate being able to use this valuable program again (she has been using it for many years)."