Desktop Ponies

Desktop Ponies is an application where some of the ponies from  will walk around your screen while acting out some small scenes from the series.

The program was created by the Ponychan user Desktopponyguy with original sprite models from Derpy Delivery and animations by monkeyjay, starsteppony, supersaiyanmikito, fanofetcetera, deathpwny, botchan, anonycat,and the-coop on deviantART.

Program history
Desktop Pony program started in early 2011 by an anonymous user on ponychan who later started identifying himself as DesktopPonyGuy. The first sprites were taken and modified from Derpy Delivery. MonkeyJay later made a new style for the ponies causing the original Derpy Delivery sprites to be phased out as his style became the new base for each pony.

Ponychan (specifically /collab/) has always been the site used for communication between members and for others to help with the project. A new thread for the project is started every couple of months, the latest being this example

deviantArt
On June 23, 2012, the team started a group on DA called Desktop-Pony-Team for hosting the original artists' works, as there had been a wave of people claiming credit for the animations in the program. The idea for a DA group to help advertise and respond to people claiming credit was thought up by an anonymous user in a Desktop Pony theft reporting thread on Ponychan about a week earlier.

Current version
On December 16, 2012, the team released their new website along side version 1.42 of the program.

Supported platforms
The program is only officially supported on Windows by the Desktop Pony team, but an official patch for Mac is being worked on and planed for release with V1.42 of the program.

There are unofficial patches for Mac, Apple's iPhone, and Android devices made by fans of the program, but these remain unsupported by the Desktop Pony team.

Available ponies
The program as of V1.42.06 has 150 characters from the show available to users of the program.

Interactions
Most ponies will not interact with each other unless they did so in an episode, such as when Pinkie Pie follows Rainbow Dash in her Candy 'Copter, or when Gilda and Rainbow Dash sing the Junior Speedsters Chant.

Phrases
Most ponies will occasionally speak while out on your screen. They will only say phrases from the series, these appear as a text box above their heads.

Sounds
There are sound files that have a chance of playing instead of a text box appearing. They are set to a 1% chance of occurring by default, although the most current version's (as of March 4, 2012) sound system appears to be broken, with no sounds playing, despite the files and code still being present.

Trivia

 * Too many ponies will overload your computer and cause it to crash.
 * One of Pinkie Pie's animations is her Pinkie Sense, where she will put on an umbrella hat and dodge a falling Tom, despite Tom never appearing in the episode Feeling Pinkie Keen.
 * Many users complain about ponies getting in their way, so a new version where the ponies stay away from your cursor was created by WindowPonies and can be found here. WindowPonies hasn't been updated since August 2011 and the feature was included in the desktop pony program.
 * When you hover over the ponies with your cursor, many will simply stand there, but Pinkie Pie gives you the stare from the end of Bridle Gossip.
 * The Princess Luna sprite was used in the infamous Luna Game series.
 * A short two chapter story titled desktop ponies was featured on Equestria Daily on May 18, 2011.

Ponychan thread history

 * Ponychan In-show pony thread
 * Ponychan Fanmade pony thread