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've never been satisfied with the glazes I've used. Most of them are either commercial stuff or house glazes at the studio. I'm hoping that through the Insight product and the Magic of Fire I can get a better understanding of the physics and the chemistry of glazes and have more control over what happens inside the kiln and what it looks like outside the kiln. I've been reading the book and fooling about with the software and so far I'm learning quite a bit about what oxides do, what fluxes do, and so forth. Good stuff indeed. I've got high hopes."
"It was nice to meet you in person. You have written a great program. It has and continues to be a great learning tool for me aside from the assisting tool it was intended to be. I usually need concrete numbers and facts before I can learn anything; once confronted with them, I just research the topic as time permits. Thank you for making this possible. I can't wait to see what the next version will do."
"Excellent software you have created. Thanks again."
"The installation of the software went with no problems. I am a fan of your work and have heard many good comments about INSIGHT. I am going to get it to help me make the best cone 6 glazes with the raw materials I can find."
"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)."
"Insight is very efficient."