Submit form without reloading page

I have a function built in JavaScript that I want to be executed after a form submit is hit. It basically changes the look of the page completely. But I need a variable from the search box to still go through to the JavaScript. At the moment it flashes and resets what was there because it reloads the page.

So I set up a return false in my function which keeps it from doing that but the variable I want doesn't get submitted through the form. Any ideas on what I should do to get it? It's okay for the page to refresh as long as the updateTable() function works and isn't reset by the page reset.

<form action="" method="get" onsubmit="return updateTable();">
  <input name="search" type="text">
  <input type="submit" value="Search" >
</form>

This is the updateTable function:

function updateTable() { 
  var photoViewer = document.getElementById('photoViewer');
  var photo = document.getElementById('photo1').href;
  var numOfPics = 5;
  var columns = 3; 
  var rows = Math.ceil(numOfPics/columns);
  var content="";
  var count=0;

  content = "<table class='photoViewer' id='photoViewer'>";
  for (r = 0; r < rows; r++) {
    content +="<tr>";
    for (c = 0; c < columns; c++) {
      count++;
      if(count == numOfPics) break; // check if number of cells is equal number of pictures to stop
      content +="<td><a href='"+photo+"' id='photo1'><img class='photo' src='"+photo+"' alt='Photo'></a><p>City View</p></td>";
    }
    content +="</tr>";
  }
  content += "</table>";
  photoViewer.innerHTML = content;
}

You can't do this using forms the normal way. Instead, you want to use AJAX.

A sample function that will submit the data and alert the page response.

function submitForm() {
    var http = new XMLHttpRequest();
    http.open("POST", "<<whereverTheFormIsGoing>>", true);
    http.setRequestHeader("Content-type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
    // probably use document.getElementById(...).value
    var params = "search=" + <<get search value>>;
    http.send(params);
    http.onload = function() {
        alert(http.responseText);
    }
}