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 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."
"My impression is that a large proportion of students passing through Higher Education in Ceramics either are not taught the Chemistry or are not interested in it. It seems that the Aethsetic or Creative side is more important. However maybe I am old school but I believe that you can't build a house unless you know how to lay bricks."
"Insight must be great as our potters rave about it!"
"My hope is that you live long and prosper. I want Insight forever."
"Years ago, after studying all available books, and whatever you had on DigitalFire at the time, I had written a glaze program myself (in old Delphi and Paradox database) which I have later lost. At the time I did not appreciate enough yours as I wanted more for recording firings and tests. It was a bit slow and cumbersome and, obviously, lacked such a wonderful support like 4Sight. So now I can fully appreciate what you have done and am grateful for it."
"I looked at it and in 3 minutes it looks good!"