Try map. "Map EXPR, LIST. This function evaluates the EXPR for each element of LIST (locally setting $_ to each element) and returns the list comprising the results of each such evaluation." (Programming Perl, p.740)

@files = <../data/texts/*.txt>;
@display_names = map( /([^\/]+)\.txt/, @files );
[download]

Update: Oops! Didn't escape my "."...

Now you can use @files if you want the full filename and @display_names if you want to put just the non-extension, non-pathname filenames into a popup menu.

Peace,
LassiLantar