Graham Waplocus for a start {_$File} should be in the 'filter' parameter not the 'folder' or it makes no sense
the best way would be to load the file list into a xtscript variable and then check it is empty and if it is empty then re set the variable using a full filelist without filter
something like

var $list= <xt:filelist sort_type="name" sort_dir="" folder="/Java/APPS/files/" template=".file_name_parsed." per_page="1" filter="{_$File}"/> if not $list var $list= <xt:filelist sort_type="name" sort_dir="" folder="/Java/APPS/files/" template=".file_name_parsed." /> endif