how to dynamically read in local files?

I made an image slideshow of sorts for a website. Right now each slideshow image is a list item stored in a unordered list and I use javascript and naming conventions to write each list item out. Example:

for (j = 0; j<imageFileLength; j++){
    $('ul#Slider').append('<li><img src="'+fileName+'/0'+j+'.png" /></li>');} //write list items for each image
 });

This worked for awhile but now I can't hardcode it like this anymore. Anyone needs to be able to drop files into my folder, favorably with any name, and they will automatically be added as a list item to the unordered list.

I am required to use IE 8 which is a bit of a problem. It doesn't support the HTML File API, and it also doesn't support using PHP, but I might be able to get this turned on.

Any ideas? Or, if PHP is a good way to go about it, how it would be done? Maybe java via netbeans?

thank you