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Finding controls within a Page's control hierarchy can be painful but if you know how the controls are nested you can use the lesser known "$" shortcut to find controls without having to write recursive code. The following example shows how to use the DefaultFocus property to set the focus on a textbox that is nested inside of a FormView control. Notice that the "$" is used to delimit the nesting:
<form id="form1" DefaultFocus="formVw$txtName" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:FormView ID="formVw" runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
Name:
<asp:TextBox ID="txtName" runat="server"
Text='<%# Eval("FirstName") + " " + Eval("LastName") %>' />
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:FormView>
</div>
</form>
This little trick can also be used on the server-side when calling FindControl():
TextBox tb = this.FindControl("form1$formVw$txtName") as TextBox;
if (tb != null)
{
//Access TextBox control
}