Custom first post on home page wordpress - wordpress

Question

I need to change this code so the first post displays with the class "first" and also has the firsttop class along with firstbottom. The rest of the inside pages eg page/2/ , page/3/ and so on will not have this class. I have tried many things please help not sure whats wrong here.
<?php
if (have_posts()) :
$count = 0;
while (have_posts()):
the_post();
if (get_post_type() == 'post'):
?>
<?php
if (!is_single() && $count == 0):
?>
<div class="firsttop<?php echo !is_home() ? "notop" : "" ?>"></div>
<?php endif; ?>
<article class="post <?php echo !is_single() ? "preview" : "" ?> <?php echo $count == 0 ? "first" : "" ?> <?php echo !is_home() ? "full" : "" ?>">
<p class="byline">
<?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?>
</p>
<h3>
<?php the_title(); ?>
</h3>
<div>
<?php the_content('<span class="more">Read More...</span>'); ?>
</div>
<?php include ('post-info.php'); ?>
</article>
<?php
if (!is_single() && $count == 0):
?>
<div class="firstbottom<?php echo !is_home() ? "nobottom" : "" ?>"></div>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php
endif;
$count++;
endwhile;
endif;
?>

Answer 1

Have you tried to use a filter for this?
Read more about wordpress add_filter here http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_filter
You can make a new plugin or add it to your functions.php file in your theme directory.
This guy did it with post_class, but it might not work for you if you didn't use the post_class in your posts loop page. http://wpsnipp.com/index.php/functions-php/add-class-to-first-post-in-the-loop/
Here's a snippet of his code:
add_filter( 'post_class', 'wps_first_post_class' );
function wps_first_post_class( $classes ) {
global $wp_query;
if( 0 == $wp_query->current_post )
$classes[] = 'first';
return $classes;
}