The goals for this project are to produce and maintain a lightweight, simple bugtracking system. Additions of complexity/features are modular so that users can be shielded from unwanted clutter. Thus, much of the package has a simple version of a feature along with a more fully developed version. In the 'core' package the goal is to have the most important, most used, most time saving portions of a bug tracking system. The product is designed to be easily modifiable, customizable, and upgradeable. Anyone with intermediate PHP and MySQL experience should be able to customize MantisBT to suit their needs. Here are some of the guidelines that are followed in Mantis:
Quick access to "What I want to do?"
Simple navigation
Layered complexity
Consistency
Scale to browser window size
Minimal clutter
Minimal graphics
No frames
No animations
Work with Javascript turned off.