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
IPreferenceNode singleSelection = getSingleSelection(selection);
						boolean expanded = viewer
								.getExpandedState(singleSelection);
						viewer.setExpandedState(singleSelection, !expanded);
					}
				});
		
		viewer.getControl().addHelpListener(new HelpListener() {
			public void helpRequested(HelpEvent event) {
				
				if (currentPage != null) {
					currentPage.performHelp();
				}
			}
		});
		viewer.setLabelProvider(new PreferenceLabelProvider());
		viewer.setContentProvider(new PreferenceContentProvider());
		return viewer;
	}
	/**
	 * Find the <code>IPreferenceNode</code> that has data the same id as the
	 * supplied value.
	 * 
	 * @param nodeId
	 *            the id to search for.
	 * @return <code>IPreferenceNode</code> or <code>null</code> if not
	 *         found.
	 */
	protected IPreferenceNode findNodeMatching(String nodeId) {
		List nodes = preferenceManager