Bug 33628 [Preferences] provide API for showing a specified preference page
There is no way for a plugin to open the (workbench) preference dialog with a certain peference page selected. Enabling this would allow plugins to refer the user to a certain preference page, for example when a misconfiguration is detected during execution of an action. Also this enables developers to write a new search panel to find a text in the preference pages and get the user right there. A method select(IPreferencePage page), select(IPreferenceNode node) or select(String path) in org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog would help.
bundles/org.eclipse.jface/src/org/eclipse/jface/preference/PreferenceDialog.java
final IPreferenceNode node = (IPreferenceNode) nodes.next();
			if (node.getPage() != null) {
				Platform.run(new SafeRunnable() {
					public void run() {
						if (!node.getPage().performCancel())
							return;
					}
				});
			}
		}
		setReturnCode(CANCEL);
		close();
	}
	/**
	 * Clear the last selected node. This is so that we not chache the last
	 * selection in case of an error.
	 */
	void clearSelectedNode() {
		setSelectedNodePreference(null);
	}
	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 * 
	 * @see org.eclipse.jface.window.Window#close()
	 */
	public boolean close() {
		List nodes = preferenceManager.getElements(PreferenceManager.PRE_ORDER);
		for (int i = 0; i < nodes.size(); i++) {
			IPreferenceNode node = (IPreferenceNode) nodes.get(i);
			node.disposeResources();