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
* (non-Javadoc)
	 * 
	 * @see org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.Dialog#buttonPressed(int)
	 */
	protected void buttonPressed(int buttonId) {
		switch (buttonId) {
			case IDialogConstants.OK_ID : {
				okPressed();
				return;
			}
			case IDialogConstants.CANCEL_ID : {
				cancelPressed();
				return;
			}
			case IDialogConstants.HELP_ID : {
				helpPressed();
				return;
			}
		}
	}
	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 * 
	 * @see org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.Dialog#cancelPressed()
	 */
	protected void cancelPressed() {
		
		Iterator nodes = preferenceManager.getElements(
				PreferenceManager.PRE_ORDER).iterator();
		while (nodes.hasNext()) {