History: 

In the mid 1990s, computer technicians relied heavily on small diagnostic utilities. These tools were kept on 3.5" floppy disks and were typically standalone EXE's designed to run in the background. They focused on system metrics: CPU load, RAM usage, disk activity, IRQ conflicts, network latency, FPS counters and along with others for DirectX/OpenGL. 

In 1999 Everquest was launched but it quickly began to exhibit, unstable framerates, high latency, memory leaks, especially during raids. Sony forbid client modification. EverQuest had no addon API, no scripting, no injection and no overlay ability. Soon, players began running helper tools outside the game where they sat on the taskbar, system trays or inside small floating displays.

EQ players were constantly troubleshooting their own machines because the game was demanding and very unstable. EverQuest allowed external tools, as long as they didn’t inject code or modify the client. Cheating was closely monitored. CML was a passive monitor, so it was safe. And then came 2004. 

In 2004 World of Warcraft launched and many of the same issues Everquest had when it first went online, probably due more to the hardware of those times, began to afflict player's systems of the WoW community. Blizzard did not allow external overlays or injected tools. CML had to evolve. The UI had to be rewritten using XML + Lua. From CML.ini to CML_Saved = {} ... Instead of floating on the Windows desktop, CML could now be anchored to the WoW UI. Compared to other addons from WoW's early years, CML has changed very little. In 2008, CML became a part of the ACE community but soon was sat on a back shelf and forgotten. In 2026, CML was added to CurseForge for redistribution. 

Ever since I first began to use CML from a floppy disk when I played Everquest in 1999 and then share through WoWInterface for World of Wacraft in 2004, I have found it a valuable tool I can not live without. 