Q:

Can I create a find & replace bar in Mac OS version older than Lion?

I'd like to add a find bar (just like the one that appears in Safari, Skim, etc) in the NSTextView of my app.
I'd like to use NSTextView's setUsesFindBar method, but it's a Lion only API at the moment (according to its documentation). It uses the NSTextFinder class, which is also available only in Lion.
My question is how I may be able to replicate this in my app that needs to run on both Snow Leopard and Lion. I could of course use the find panel on SL, but it would be nice to have a consistent look across the two versions.
Are apps like Safari, Skim and so on coding it from scratch in their SL versions?
Any explanations or pointers would be much appreciated.

A:

Unfortunately, you'd need to implement the find bar from scratch for Snow Leopard, there's no API support for it. Safari may use a private implementation of this API in Snow Leopard (I don't know if it does or not) but the developer of Skim has most likely re-implemented it from scratch.
I think that letting Lion users make use of the new functionality while SL users get the old find panel is an appropriate way of dealing with the situation. I don't personally think it's worth going to the effort of re-implementing it for a legacy OS.
Updated: I just did a search for Skim and it appears to be open source. If that is the Skim app you're referring to, then just check out the source and have a look for yourself. 

