title: ASP.Net Accessing child controls in a FormView control
body: <p>I'm using a FormView control (myFormView) with an EditItemTemplate which contains a number of child controls. When I use a standard ASP.Net DropDownList control (myDropList), I can obtain a reference to myDropList using the line below:</p>
  
  <pre><code>((DropDownList)myFormView.FindControl("myDropList"))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I can full access the properties of the myDropList and obtain the value currently selected. This is great.</p>
  
  <p>However, I now need to use a 3rd party child control (FreeTextBox as found here <a href="http://www.freetextbox.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.freetextbox.com</a>) in the FormView control. I've called the FreeTextBox control myFTB and I'm using a similar statement as above:</p>
  
  <pre><code>((FreeTextBox)myFormView.FindControl("myFTB"))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, this returns null and thus I'm enable to retrieve property values for this. </p>
  
  <p>Does anyone know why it is returning null? Is there some other way to retrieve the reference to the control?</p>
  
  <p>TIA</p>