The PDF Manual.
Modified: November 21, 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 have been using Insight since the 1980's. I have used other programs and I like yours best."
"The current problems that prompted me to look for software are not exotic. Cornwall stone is $84 USD, G-200 is $14, so how much of what can we substitute to convert our favorite matt blue ^10 glaze? Why do some glazes craze sometimes and not others? Besides that I find the chemistry fascinating. We have recipes that work very well. I'd like to understand why. The math I find tedious; I did similar analysis for a course on ruminant nutrition, solving for protein, energy, calcium and potassium. Insight will allow me to explore the chemistry without spending so much time on the calculations."
"I think I have always been a bit of an emissary for Insight, on Clayart and elsewhere, and will continue to do so. I have always preferred Insight over the other glaze-calc programs, and I enjoy teaching it to my students and seeing the way it helps open up the world of technical ceramics."
"I really appreciate your software! I especially like the newest changes..."
"Between you and the guys that wrote "Mastering Cone 6 Glazes" I have been having great success with my pottery. After 20 years of making functional ware successfully it has been refreshing to be able to make my work even that much better. I use the liner glaze you developed and it is so consistent!"
"I teach Pottery 1 and 2 at a high school. I have not used your program enough to understand all the intricasies but thus far it has shown to be very useful in computing glaze formula changes."