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 am getting better at using Insight for what it is intended in the ability to select different materials to provide the various oxides and to compare them to target glazes. I have also used Insight to review recipes to decide whether I want to try them or not, given the likely characteristics and avoided wasting my time with poorly constructed recipes."
"Insight has so much information, I'm still taking it all in. "
"Having used Insight for many years and yes it has been a necessary part of my continual learning about materials. Your software is an incredibly valuable tool and has been for me for many many years. So thanks!"
"I will be formulating glasses to match a 104 COE. Thanks so much for your help, I am looking forward to using the program successfully to get the glass I am looking for. One real nice benefit for me is that you have frit compositions for my calculations as bases I will use - this alone is worth the price."
"I am sure this would probably not be an easy fix, but it is one that would be GREATLY appreciated. It would also be appreciated by the hundreds of potters I recommend Insight to every year... Overall, Insight has greatly increased my understanding of how to alter glazes. Before Insight, it felt like I was doing surgery with a pocket knife, now I have all the modern operating tools at my disposal. Thanks for making Insight available for us Luddites! "
"It's great."