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 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."
"Since many potters/ceramicists I have met seem to be of the try-it-and-see approach and I come from a what-about-the-periodic-table-then-try-it variety, I get some blank stares. I see no reason to try it ten times when three can get you started predictably. Of course, I would have to know the chemical composition of a product but once I know that, it becomes math and balance."
"As a chemist, I really appreciate your approach, and respect your emphasis on awareness of toxicity of glazes and glaze materials."
"The programme is great! It has saved us time and anguish on many an occasion."
"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'm really enjoying Insight 5. It's a great program and saves me tons of time."