Creating Exterior Trim with Cutting capability

[arcitek]

I was creating a simple exterior window trim family that I could apply to a window opening which is shown in use in the image pre-cut. The trim legs came down to a wall sill. The design changed so the wall sill went away and became a 1x4 horizontal trim piece so the 1x4 window trim needed to wrap around the window and "cut" the horizontal trim as seen in the image post-cut. In order to do this, I added a void extrusion element to the family. This seemed to work but I had to pick the horizontal trim piece and use the "cut geometry" command to then pick this trim family to actually cut the horizontal trim.

Since I am by far NOT any sort of expert in family creation, is this the only way to really accomplish this? I guess I was thinking there would be more of an automatic "parametric" way that as I inserted the trim, it would automatically cut the horizontal trim piece as shown. Is there such a way or was my method pretty much the approach I should have employed?

Thanks!

[Steve_Bennett]

Although not typically used, Curtain Walls can do most of what you are describing.
Otherwise, yes, you'll be in the family editor spending lots of time creating solid/void geometry.

For the image thumbnail on the left, if you want to control how far up/down the 1x4 outer trim piece extends, you could build a reference plane in the family elevation view, add a labeled dimension and then control it in the project. It wont be able to recognize building trim components and move itself up though, that's where the human operator comes in.