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 wish I would have upgraded sooner, it has been many years, there are so many improvements in the 2008 version."
"For years I have told any potter who would listen that INSIGHT completely changed my knowledge of glazes and gave me an understanding and control I never thought I would have. I can't thank you enough!"
"Great web site..Currently I am teaching classes at a local art center and hope you don't mind if I pass this website on to my students. Thanx!!!""
"I am very much interested in developing my own glaze formulas. When you describe the potter who is looking for formulas all over the internet and buying comercial glazes you could have been talking about me."
"I am a beginner potter setting up a studio at home. Having an extensive background in chemistry, I was elated to find a site addressing all the questions I had. I knew I didn't want to take the 'glaze junkie' approach. THANKS!!!"
"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."