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
* @see org.eclipse.jface.preference.IPreferencePageContainer#updateMessage()
	 */
	public void updateMessage() {
		String message = currentPage.getMessage();
		int messageType = IMessageProvider.NONE;
		if (message != null && currentPage instanceof IMessageProvider)
			messageType = ((IMessageProvider) currentPage).getMessageType();
		String errorMessage = currentPage.getErrorMessage();
		if (errorMessage != null) {
			message = errorMessage;
			messageType = IMessageProvider.ERROR;
			if (!showingError) {
				
				showingError = true;
				titleImage.setImage(null);
				titleImage.setBackground(JFaceColors
						.getErrorBackground(titleImage.getDisplay()));
				titleImage.setSize(0, 0);
				titleImage.getParent().layout();
			}
		} else {
			if (showingError) {
				
				showingError = false;
				titleImage
						.setImage(JFaceResources.getImage(PREF_DLG_TITLE_IMG));
				titleImage.computeSize(SWT.NULL, SWT.NULL);
				titleImage.getParent().layout();
			}
		}