See issue 0003834.

I'm not PHP programmer :), but I've just changed Mantis 1.0.0a2 to do that. It works but would be really nice to implement this feature by mantis team.

1) In file core/columns_api.php in function "print_column_status" replace the first printf with:

printf( '<a title="%s">%s</a>'
, get_enum_element( 'resolution', $p_row['resolution'] )
, ( ($p_row['status']>=config_get( 'show_resolution_instead_status' ))?(get_enum_element( 'resolution', $p_row['resolution'] )):(get_enum_element( 'status', $p_row['status'] )))
);

2) to config_inc.php add line

$g_show_resolution_instead_status = 80;

This can be achieved in newer versions of mantis by using the column customisation functionality and adding 'resolution' as an additional column.