Java UI

Today in my java practice I tried to make a user interface for the game of life using checkboxes and swing, a java UI tool. I succeed in making the interface, but at the same time I made the underlying code so complicated that I couldn't understand it enough to edit it and make the actual game. I guess I should hold off on the tools that automatically generate code until I have a more solid understanding myself. One of the most infuriating things however was how the code was generated. Large chunks were simply not editable! I couldn't, for example, initialize all of the checkbox objects in one array because the whole class that created them was uneditable. I am sure there are good reasons that the code could not be changed, but I could not for the life of me find them out. Tomorrow I will tackle the issue again and make the UI last, if at all, and focus on the actual programming of the game.