see https://github.com/mantisbt/mantisbt/pull/1958

I'm not sure I understand why this is needed. Can you provide some context ?

To me it seemed logical to provide same options for adding overviews by a plugin as standard is being used by Mantisbt. For standard items both arrays en html links are supported and for plugins just html links.
Nothing more than making it consistent.

Hi @cas I was looking at this, and I must admit I'm still a bit confused and not sure what you are trying to achieve... Maybe due to a misunderstanding of what you mean by "overview" in this context ?

To clarify, can you please explain better, maybe with screenshots ?
Also indicate what event(s) you are referring to ? Is it EVENT_SUBMENU_SUMMARY, EVENT_MANTISGRAPH_SUBMENU, others ? Alternatively, maybe you can point me to a plugin where you need this, with some explanations

It is about the event "EVENT_MANTISGRAPH_SUBMENU", calling print_submenu within HTML_api.php ( see for example my Defcon plugin).
My suggestion was to provide plugins same options as standard available, so an array or a html link.
Do agree with you that this is introducting code duplication which clearly is not desirable.
If needed I can contribute a generic function for this.