Winform + XNA (Microsoft Example) - Issues with Drawing Texture2D

Question

Before I get started I would just like to say that I have been using the Microsoft Winform + Xna examples found here:

WinForms Series 1: Graphics Device

I think I somewhat understand how its working however I'm running into one major problem. I'm trying to draw a Texture2D image to the spriteFontControl's spriteBatch parameter, which is an object of the XNA SpriteBatch class, and when I do I get this red "X" on a white box that fills the entire spriteFontControl area. This is a screen shot of what it looks like:

As for the coding that I added to do this is pretty simple. I used the content parameter from the spriteFontControl to load the box.jpg image into the program. Then just called the following code inside the Draw() method for the spriteFontControl:

spriteBatch.Begin();
spriteBatch.Draw(box, new Vector2(0,0),Color.Black);
spriteBatch.End();

If anyone could please offer some help as to how to draw Texture2D images in the Winform + XNA example then that would be most helpful. I heard that it was made so that you could draw it just like you would in XNA but I think I'm still missing something.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. This is the code from the Draw() method of the spriteFontControl:

    const string message = "Hello, World!\n" +
                               "\n" +
                               "I'm an XNA Framework GraphicsDevice,\n" +
                               "running inside a WinForms application.\n" +
                               "\n" +
                               "This text is drawn using SpriteBatch,\n" +
                               "with a SpriteFont that was loaded\n" +
                               "through the ContentManager.\n" +
                               "\n" +
                               "The pane to my right contains a\n" +
                               "spinning 3D triangle.";

    GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);

    spriteBatch.Begin(); 
    spriteBatch.Draw(box, new Vector2(15, 15), Color.Black);
    spriteBatch.DrawString(font, message, new Vector2(23, 23), Color.White);
    spriteBatch.End();

Answer 1

you are throwing an exception...

you should ensure that "spritebatch" and "box" variables are not null.

Answer 2

Instead of creating a game in a form, create a form in a game.

In your initialize method:

using System.Windows.Forms;

/* ... other methods **/

protected override void Initialize()
{
    Application.EnableVisualStyles();
    Form form = (Form)Form.FromHandle(this.Window.Handle);
}

then simply add Controls to that form like:

Panel panel = new Panel() { Width = 200, Dock = DockStyle.Right };
form.Controls.Add(panel);

this way, you should have no problem loading anything without problems. It's simply a game that has controls. Much easier than the other way around, because you get no "game loop".

EDIT: You need to create a method that updates the viewport according to the controls when the window is resized (if it ever is) otherwise it will need to be run at least once. Otherwise if you create controls on the form that takes 50% of the viewport, the viewport will still be 100% and positioned wrongly. So, a good idea is to have each control have a "Dock" then you can increase X if it's docked to the left, decrease Width if it's docked to the right, increase Y if it's docked at the top and decrease height if it's docked to the bottom.

I've used this (created an automatic method that gets called everytime the window is resized and when it's initialized) and it sets the viewport correctly and works just fine.

I've only encountered errors while trying to get a Game work in a Windows Form. Much easier the other way around.