Shield UI Date Filtering in Grid

Question

Is there any intelligent way to filter a Date column within the Shield UI grid widget?

I am using custom date filter

function dateFilter(cell) {
        $('<input />')
            .appendTo(cell)
            .shieldDatePicker().swidget().focus();
    }

But I also want to use the built-in filtering functions for a Date input without having to write a bunch of workaround code

                    { "func": "eq", "name": "Equal to" },
                    { "func": "neq", "name": "Not equal to" },
                    { "func": "gt", "name": "Greater than" },
                    { "func": "lt", "name": "Less than" }