Questions about Blocks and Menus

Question

I'm new to Drupal, so bare with me...

I created a menu that I placed inside the Sidebar First Region.

1st question: I was able to place my menu in the Sidebar First Region by going to the blocks page "admin/structure/block". Is a menu seen as a block, since i am able to assign a region for a menu inside the BLOCKS page ? or is just the name of the page misleading, since it can take care of both blocks and menus ?

2nd question: How can i import/export a menu that has a bunch of links inside it ? i want to export it from local to staging and prod. Features doesnt seem to work? i found menu Block and menu_import to say to be able to do that, but is there another easier or better way ?

Any other suggestions and tips are more than welcomed...

Thanks

Answer 1

1. A menu is not a block, it's just a collection of links... but the core menu module from Drupal renders the menu as a block to be easier for you to place it in the page and change its location.

2. There are multiple ways to export or import a menu. Yes, features module is one of them, but for a beginner I would suggest a module only for this, it should be easier. You can try this module.