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
viewer.removePostSelectionChangedListener(this);
					showPageFlippingAbortDialog();
					selectCurrentPageAgain();
					clearSelectedNode();
				} finally {
					viewer.addPostSelectionChangedListener(this);
				}
			}
			public void selectionChanged(SelectionChangedEvent event) {
				Object selection = getSingleSelection(event.getSelection());
				if (selection instanceof IPreferenceNode) {
					if (!isCurrentPageValid()) {
						handleError();
					} else if (!showPage((IPreferenceNode) selection)) {
						
						handleError();
					} else {
						
						lastSuccessfulNode = (IPreferenceNode) selection;
					}
					viewer.getControl().setFocus();
				}
			}
		});
		((Tree) viewer.getControl())
				.addSelectionListener(new SelectionAdapter() {
					public void widgetDefaultSelected(final SelectionEvent event) {
						ISelection selection = viewer.getSelection();
						if (selection.isEmpty())
							return;