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
return preferenceStore;
	}
	/**
	 * Get the name of the selected item preference
	 * 
	 * @return String
	 */
	protected String getSelectedNodePreference() {
		return lastPreferenceId;
	}
	/**
	 * @param selection
	 *            the <code>ISelection</code> to examine.
	 * @return the first element, or null if empty.
	 */
	protected IPreferenceNode getSingleSelection(ISelection selection) {
		if (!selection.isEmpty())
			return (IPreferenceNode) ((IStructuredSelection) selection)
					.getFirstElement();
		return null;
	}
	/**
	 * @return the <code>TreeViewer</code> for this dialog.
	 * @since 3.0
	 */
	protected TreeViewer getTreeViewer() {
		return treeViewer;
	}
	/**
	 * Save the values specified in the pages.