Bug 244284 [Preferences] Preference page help is not shown when tree is selected
In the Preferences dialog, some pages don't have a help context associated with them. On these pages, the behavior of the help button/F1 key is inconsistent: the help tray is shown if a widget on the respective page is shown, but _not_ if the tree item is selected. Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Open the Preferences dialog 2. Select the tree item "Tasks" 3. Press F1 (or press the help button in the lower left corner) -> no help is shown 4. Select any widget on the Tasks page 5. Press F1 -> the help tray is shown Root cause analysis: As far as I could find out, the reason for this inconsistent behavior lies in the method org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferencePage.performHelp(), which is triggered in step 3. This method assumes, that the preference page's top level control has a help listener attached to it. This is true for many other preference pages [see for example org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui.preferences.JavaBasePreferencePage.createControl(Composite)], but not for the Task preference page [sorry, couldn't find its source code]. So why does step 5 still show the help tray? That step triggers org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.TrayDialog.helpPressed() which searches the widget hierarchy for a help listener, and will always find one on the dialog level. I suggest to chage PreferencePage.performHelp() so that it behaves like TrayDialog.helpPressed(), for example by copying the recursive search for help handlers.
bundles/org.eclipse.jface/src/org/eclipse/jface/preference/PreferenceDialog.java
/**
	 * Set the message text. If the message line currently displays an error,
	 * the message is stored and will be shown after a call to clearErrorMessage
	 * <p>
	 * Shortcut for <code>setMessage(newMessage, NONE)</code>
	 * </p>
	 * 
	 * @param newMessage
	 *            the message, or <code>null</code> to clear the message
	 */
	public void setMessage(String newMessage) {
		setMessage(newMessage, IMessageProvider.NONE);
	}
	/**
	 * Sets the message for this dialog with an indication of what type of
	 * message it is.
	 * <p>
	 * The valid message types are one of <code>NONE</code>,
	 * <code>INFORMATION</code>,<code>WARNING</code>, or
	 * <code>ERROR</code>.
	 * </p>
	 * <p>
	 * Note that for backward compatibility, a message of type
	 * <code>ERROR</code> is different than an error message (set using
	 * <code>setErrorMessage</code>). An error message overrides the current
	 * message until the error message is cleared. This method replaces the
	 * current message and does not affect the error message.
	 * </p>
	 * 
	 * @param newMessage