It would really help to have a fast way of entering powers of ten.
In electronics, every number has a large exponent and entering 15 * 10 ^ 7 is harder than 15E7
(8 keystrokes vs 4)

I think that there should be an option to treat the special case of E , as the exponent operator.

* is automatically inserted when going from numbers to letters, but this is no problem.
ie new behaviour: 15E6 -> 15*10^6
old: 15E6 -> 15*E6

Problem: variable names like E or E6FilmMass, would need to have an operator explicitly used, and could not use the current automatic * operator insertion

Alternatives: use ctrl+E or alt+E as simple keystroke macro to insert: *10^

Wrote

It would really help to have a fast way of entering powers of ten.

Features request ... What features request ?

Wrote

It would really help to have a fast way of entering powers of ten.
In electronics, every number has a large exponent and entering 15 * 10 ^ 7 is harder than 15E7
(8 keystrokes vs 4)

....

Alternatives: use ctrl+E or alt+E as simple keystroke macro to insert: *10^

Alternative: Define a function E()

not a bad idea. I could also define all the common positives eg

e3:=1000
and maybe the negatives
n3:=10^-3

it would certainly help with matrices as it is more compact too.
With the snippet manager, quite viable.

I do think it would also be good to consider (optionally) using the common exponent notation for display as it is much more compact in arrays. When an array is full of *10^3 it really blows out the size on the page.

Wrote

I do think it would also be good to consider (optionally) using the common exponent notation for display as it is much more compact in arrays. When an array is full of *10^3 it really blows out the size on the page.

You can write any multiplier in the unit placeholder of results.

True, but only in the very limited number of cases where all elements have the same exponent.

Make your own feature to suit peculiar project.
This notation is native in OriginLab.

Maths e(n).sm (14 KiB) downloaded 37 time(s).

Wrote

When an array is full of *10^3 it really blows out the size on the page.

Show the array creation c/w the blown page size.
No monkey see, no monkey do !

Wrote

I do think it would also be good to consider (optionally) using the common exponent notation for display as it is much more compact in arrays. When an array is full of *10^3 it really blows out the size on the page.

How about the Table region?

sci.sm (13 KiB) downloaded 30 time(s).

That's a useful solution. I see that when scientific is selected, however, that it loses the units.

Is the table plugin part of the closed source, or an open source add on that might be fixable?
[is it: https://smath.info:8443/!/#public/view/head/plugins/TableRegion ?]

However, I would just prefer to have numeric formatting work well in the first place.

The plugin is open source, just like all third-party plugins.

Wrote

Is the table plugin part of the closed source, or an open source add on that might be fixable?

Table region is part of the SS download as old as SS 6179.
Fix what to this superb delivery ?

Wrote

I see that when scientific is selected, however, that it loses the units.

It does not lose what's not specified.

Table Scientific.sm (20 KiB) downloaded 55 time(s).