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
* <p>
	 * The default implementation of this framework method saves all pages of
	 * type <code>PreferencePage</code> (if their store needs saving and is a
	 * <code>PreferenceStore</code>).
	 * </p>
	 * <p>
	 * Subclasses may override.
	 * </p>
	 */
	protected void handleSave() {
		Iterator nodes = preferenceManager.getElements(
				PreferenceManager.PRE_ORDER).iterator();
		while (nodes.hasNext()) {
			IPreferenceNode node = (IPreferenceNode) nodes.next();
			IPreferencePage page = node.getPage();
			if (page instanceof PreferencePage) {
				
				IPreferenceStore store = ((PreferencePage) page)
						.getPreferenceStore();
				if (store != null && store.needsSaving()
						&& store instanceof IPersistentPreferenceStore) {
					try {
						((IPersistentPreferenceStore) store).save();
					} catch (IOException e) {
						MessageDialog
								.openError(
										getShell(),
										JFaceResources
												.getString("PreferenceDialog.saveErrorTitle"), 
										JFaceResources