Help me find a way

Question

I think I just F'd myself and here is why. I was trying to create a class that would create JComponents for me and then just return that panel they were added to whelp. I got to thinking if I do that and then return the Panel then how do I access the components once that panel is returned if I created them as follows... if you look at the for loop that is where I create and then add my components to the panel. Someone please tell me there is a way to access these components once the panel is returned to check their values. Give me some options as what other way to approach this please. Additionallly, I dont' believe I can do this but I thought I would ask anyways. Once a variable is created is there a way to rename the variable within your code. So if I created JLabels j1, j2, j3...with the text "temp1", "temp2", "temp3". Can they be renamed to ... "txtTemp1", "txtTemp2", "txtTemp3"... within a for loop? Gosh I am so stupid I didn't think of this before I created these stupid functions. IDEAS?
     private static JPanel makeVerticalTextEntry(String title, int rows, int cols,
               String[] labelText, Dimension[] dims){
          //Create Objects
          JPanel pnl = new JPanel();
          GridBagLayout gbl = new GridBagLayout();
          GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
          pnl.setLayout(gbl);
          JTextField textField;
          //prevent Error for inccor number of arguments
          int numOfComponents = 0;
          if(rows == 1){
               numOfComponents = cols;
          }else if(cols == 1){
               numOfComponents = rows;
          }else{
               numOfComponents = labelText.length;
          if(cols == 0){ cols = 1;}
          if(rows == 0){ rows = 1;}
          //set constraints
          gbc.anchor = GridBagConstraints.CENTER;
          gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
          //create components
          JComponent[] comps = new JComponent[numOfComponents];
          int index = 0;
          for(int row = 0; row < rows*2;row++)
               for(int col = 0; col < cols; col++, index++){
                    if(index < labelText.length){
                         comps[index] = new JLabel(labelText[index]);
                         textField = new JTextField("");
                         setMinAndPreferredSizes(textField, dims[index]);
                         gbc.anchor = GridBagConstraints.LINE_START;
                         gbc.insets = new Insets(0,10,0,0);
                         addComponent(pnl, comps[index] ,gbl, gbc, row, col, 1, 1);
                         gbc.insets = new Insets(0,10,20,10);
                         addComponent(pnl, textField, gbl, gbc, row+1, col, 1, 1);
               row++;
          //Set Panel Border
          setTitledEtchedBorder(pnl, title);
          //Set panel size
          Dimension radioBtnSize = comps[0].getPreferredSize();
          Dimension size = getWidestComponentSize(comps);
          int height = (numOfComponents * (radioBtnSize.height+10)+10);
          int width = (size.width+30) * cols;
          return pnl;

Answer 1

crosspost... sorry guyz... http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=31&thread=556135