This is good to know. This needs to be the thing that happens when you click the actual picture. We shouldn't need to know this as a medium-advanced protip.
Though I know they're still working they're buts off just to keep the thing floating right now. Lots going on for a small team. One thing at a time!
you have to be logged in to see that icon. I learned that as I was going to ask "what icon?! I dont see anything". I guess I was logged out, but when I logged in, the icon appeared.
As a two week user, this is my experience. There is also no way to collapse comments... Yet. Someone has wonderfully coded it and shared with the devs but it has yet to be pushed to the main branch yet.
With the huge influx of users this past month they are in triage mode. Just please be patient with the product, Reddit was new at one point too!
Also there's really a UX problem with images (which appears to be fixed at testing instances) but, for now, you can enable "Auto media preview" on settings, so you don't need to click them.
A lot of these issues are open on the codeberg dev tracker - In the meantime, check out /m/kbinStyles for a bunch of user created userscripts that fix a lot of the issues people have with the UI/UX.
There is also no way to collapse comments...
Especially check out: @Artillect's Improved collapsible comments
if you open the settings gear just under your name in the upper right, you can select auto media preview to yes and you will not need to click in a thread to see
It still lacks a lot of features including QoL, but keep in mind that it's about 2 months old. When it comes to opening images, Lemmy will give an experience closer to Reddit.
(on mobile) Between where you can write a comment and the kbin Meta thing where you choose between threads, microblog people bla, there is a gear symbol.
Here you can turn on infinite scroll, direct loading images, themes etc
Like any other service, this all is just some kind of prototyping, until the dust settles. I'm sure the devs will come up with some nice UI/,UX improvements.